Getting the shaft

Getting the shaft makes it so obvious that your roommate isenjoying the fruits of her labor. Why else would you sit outsideyour door with your keys and cell phone, looking at your watchevery five minutes and listening against the door from time totime?

Everyone who passes by wants to know why you’re in thehall.

Obviously, you’re not locked out because you’resitting there with your keys.

You’re waiting on something.

You’re waiting to hear fireworks; for the car to make itthrough the tunnel.

You’re waiting on your roommate to get it on already andbe done!

Getting the shaft means getting a knock on the door at 3a.m.

It’s your roommate returning from a party and asking youif you would leave for about an hour. Fine.

So you grab your pillow and walk out. It’s 3 a.m., andyou’re wandering the halls with your pillow because yourroommate seems to have all the luck.

I have a friend who complains that she has to leave her roommore often than she would like because her roommate hooks up withguys all the time.

I told her to implement the shaft card system.

What is the shaft card system, you ask? Let me proceed toexplain.

The system operates on punch cards. You each have a punch card,which allows you to give each other the shaft only a certain numberof times.

This ensures that your roommate doesn’t take advantage ofyour generosity by limiting the number of times you can getshafted. Your roommate has to punch your card when they getshafted.

And when it’s your turn, you must punch yourroommate’s card.

The person getting the shaft holds all rights to know what wenton, and no information goes undisclosed.

No purchase necessary.

Void where prohibited.

Valid only in your room.

Offer expires at the end of the semester.

When my roommate’s boyfriend would come into town on theweekends, it was understood that I would be getting well acquaintedwith the hallway.

They obviously wanted to spend quality time together, so as agood roommate, I gathered my things and was on my merry littleway.

I always rooted for the home team, but the batter never made itpast the short stop.

I think the batter may have made it to first base once.That’s when I heard the umpire yell, “Safe!”

They always ended up watching a movie, cuddling or somethingelse lame … I mean, tame.

It never took much to entertain me. Sure, I could have beenproductive and done homework or written a novel.

Instead, I entertained myself with a clicking pen for the hourthat I spent sitting outside our door. My roommate was generousenough to offer me a sheet of paper occasionally, but the clickingpen on its own sufficed.

At least I was only shafted for an hour at a time.

I have another friend who was shafted for an entire week becauseher roommate’s boyfriend was in town.

She was asked to move out of her own room for a week.

I would object to that, but then again, I wouldn’t want tobe around as they got it on.

Some advice for my friend: strip the sheets off your bed, sothat there’s no secondary location for things to takeplace.

While you’re at it, you should probably take away yourchair, too, in case they decide to get a little ambitious.

At least girls are courteous enough to ask each other toleave.

I know guys don’t even ask. Although, guys must takewhatever they can get, and when opportunity lends itself,there’s no time for questions.

You know, my friends sure get shafted quite a bit. I’vegotten shafted once or twice.

What does that say about us? That we are a sad bunch of unluckylosers.

The system only works if there’s a reason for it to existin the first place, but seeing as how we are never that lucky, thesystem would fail.

In fact, the system hasn’t even undergone any preliminarytesting in our case.

Ann Truong is a columnist for The Daily Campus. She may bereached at [email protected].