The lodger

I used to have this roommate named Margaret....that's how I used to start my stories, and you all know how I love a good story, about Margaret. But, as I began this, I realized that Margaret was more than a collection of humourous anecdotes. Oh yes, she was insane. And a bit of a bitchy cow, but that chick had some major league problems too.

Margaret and I met when she began working at Addition Elle, a clothing store for fat chicks, back in the 1980s. To tell you the truth, there was no skill involved in working in fat lady fashion in the 80s - we were all just so grateful to not be wearing men's husky lee jeans and cords with a big oversize tshirt that we would have paid any price at all for the bit of panache that these stores offered. Which, in a way is good because while I had style - oh yes I did - Margaret had zero and while she could sell anything, I could NOT. (If that ever comes up, make a mental note, I cannot sell anything - if I attempt to sound sincere it sounds fake and if I am sincere it sounds more fake. Its best to have me run the place or go fetch stuff.)

Margaret and I became friends because we were constantly thrown together on the night shift. At the time, I was working and going to school and she was doing the same. We both worked as many nights and weekends as we could muster. She was an Admin Assistant at an Insurance company. She had gone to college - to study admin stuff and fancied herself an accomplished typist and short hand taker person - who was I to argue?

At that time, she was living in a rented house and I was living with evil roommate number 2. Soon the situation with E.R.#2 became unbearable and I was forced out essentially on to the street. Margaret, god bless her heart, took me in. Not only me, but also my cat, Nab.

It was clear from the start that although I was living with Margaret we were not roommates in her eyes - she considered me a lodger. Which to me was fine because it meant I didn't have to share in all the unpleasantness that was hydro and heating bills and the crap that was mowing the lawn and shovelling sidewalks....or so she lead me to believe.

Nab and I settled nicely into our super-lavender tiny little bedroom in the 2 bedroom bungalow at Glencairn and the Allen. Nab got along nicely with Margaret's dog, Mandy but did not get along well at all with her cat, Fluffy.

Fluffy was anything but fluffy. She was scrawny and bony and didn't have an ounce of kindness or compassion in her at all. She was also one of the first disagreements that Margaret and I had. You see, every morning, Margaret would open a can of food for Fluffy and set in on the dining room table and Fluffy would eat straight out of the can. When did she pick up the can and put it in the recycling/garbage you ask? NEVER. When I finally broke down and cleaned up (which royally pissed her off) there must have been nearly 100 empty cat food cans - oooh little but of throw up.....it was so icky I can't even tell you but, I was a lodger....remember? Not my deal. Nab ate in my room.

Margaret didn't like to clean the litter box either. She preferred to let Fluffy, and as time wore on, Mandy, just pee where they wanted and crap when they had to. The WHOLE basement was full of well, full of crap. It was a horror - an absolute horror.

But, like I said Margaret had problems. She was the youngest in a big family by about 15 years. (Again, if you are making mental notes, I'm going to say don't try for one last baby when your next youngest is 15....) Her father died when she was a kid so she and her mother were super close. Until her mother had a stroke when Margaret was 25. Of course, she still lived at home. She'd never been on a date, had a boyfriend or been kissed - she lived a sheltered life.

As the siblings stood around Mom's hospital bed, they had to decide - pull the plug or let her go on indefinitely on the machines. Margaret said - let her fight - but, she was alone. They pulled the plug - the doctors said it would only be hours - but she lived for days - lingered and died. Margaret stayed the whole time - and watched her poor mother die. It was horrible for her.

But, it got worse. Everything that Mom owned was left to all the siblings equally - so one week after the funeral, the siblings put the house up for sale and kicked Margaret's ass to the curb. That's how she ended up in the rental. She had a nice nest egg, some lovely old furniture, an inferiority complex the size of a house and a woe is me the world hates me attitude she carried everywhere she went. To be fair, she came about her sadness honestly, as do the rest of us.

Life with Margaret was always interesting. You could never know when she was going to go off on one of her weird tyrannical screaming fits. Well, and she had the funniest haircut I've ever seen. She had a bad fat lady haircut.

Now, anyone out there who says they don't know what I mean when I say fat lady haircut is full of shit. You all do. Its kind of a modified Dorothy Hamill cut from the 70s....only in a way unattractive way. Longish short hair at the front and shaved sides and shaved at the back. If you have any neck fat you are fucked - it looks ridiculous. She had that hair all frosted and tipped within and inch of its life.

She was also cursed with the fat lady back fat phenomenon. Its horrid when it happens - and it happens to the best of us. But the combination of fat lady hair with a neck fat roll and fat lady back fat phenomenon is unfortunate - add into that extremely low self esteem, a bad attitude and the misfortune of wearing nothing but pink and floral patterns and you are in for one hell of a bad time.

Margaret and I used to take road trips in her HUGE car that she inherited from her Mom - in my head its a K-car...We would always call them "fat chick road trips" and each began with a trip to 7-eleven for snacks. Sweet teeth indulged, we would head out to Southwestern Ontario where she would mostly hang with my Mom. Although attempts were made to socialize her into her own age group, with peers and introduce her to people (read: men) she was hesitant to do this and again, add in her bristly nature and out attempts were few!

Time went on and Margaret eventually got me a job at the insurance company where she worked (which if you are keeping track is where I met my husband so its not all bad!). Each day we would leave the house in its semblance of chaotic disorder. When we returned home at night, the tv would ALWAYS be on, with a cat (hers or mine) perched on top of the cable box having turned it on with a wayward paw and the dog sitting there watching it. The dog was insane and sat with its dog-ass on the couch and its paws on the floor. I think Mandy thought she was people.

It became harder and harder to live with Margaret. She didn't like me going out. She didn't like me staying in. She hated it when I cleaned up. She hated it when the house was a mess. She was getting more and more unpredictable and weird. My thought was often that she just needed to get laid. Maybe that would have solved a multitude of problems.

In fact, she took a trip to England once over Christmas vacation to stay with her aunt. She met a nice English guy in his late 40s, single, who lived with his mom. And she fancied him rotten. So much so, she arranged to go back to England in the spring - just to see him again - but this time he ignored her. Thus making it the least successful and second most expensive second date in history (I'll tell you about the most expensive second date some other time!).

Near the end of our time together, her dog barfed in the front hallway near the door and she simply threw down a newspaper and walked around it for weeks and weeks and weeks. The smell was obscene. I had to leave - I had to.

I decided to bid a hasty exit. She was not impressed. She yelled and screamed. I was cheating her and treating her mean - AFTER ALL SHE HAD DONE FOR ME! But I moved anyway - in with roommate number 4 across town. She all but threw things at me as we loaded up my stuff. I don't think I'd ever seen my cat so very happy!

Years later Wayne and I were walking in the Eaton Centre and we heard someone calling my name from miles away.....faintly - "Sandra - Sandra St. Clair....". Who was it but insane Margaret! She chased me through the mall until Wayne and I got out on to Yonge street and lost her in a crowd our hearts beating with a combination of relief and hillarity.

I was never quite sure she was all that stable. And while I don't really blame her for being unstable - I have a healthy fear/respect for the instability.