I spent the weekend visiting a friend in my college town. We stayed up late reminiscing and she drove me around visiting our old haunts. During our drive down memory lane, we talked about Scary Jerry, one of my earliest roommates. I thought I would share the tale with the interweb. Enjoy!

Sophomore year of college I shared a house with 4 guys and 2 girls. Even though I shared the dungeoness basement room with the other two girls (no windows= lots of uninterrupted sleeping after drinking way too many keg beers!) I thought this was going to be the best. year. ever because: a- it was my first year living away from home unsupervised (dorm life didn’t count as I was stuck in the all-girls’ dorm on campus aka- The Virgin Vault, Hymen Haven, Lesbian Lockdown- I heard them all) and b- I was living with my two best girl friends and 4 cool dudes. Until one of the dudes had to go to jail for the year instead (should’ve known to get out then)

So we needed a roommate and I was naive enough to think we would find someone perfect- fun, young and normal. Instead, the girls and I went away for the weekend and came home to find an old (he was 30, which to 19 yr old me was ANCIENT) creepy man who insisted on wearing white suits with white alligator boots, living in our house. Not only did he have a fashion sense more suited for Miami Vice than the Midwest, he also didn’t have a regular source of income. Instead, he was a human guinea pig who participated in medical studies for a living. But he was over 21 so could buy us booze. Apparently our guy roommates thought that this quality made him the perfect candidate to live with us.

Well, let’s just say that things with Scary Jerry were a bit rocky. When he was out of the hospital, remember- human guinea pig- he would lounge on the couch all day, watching countless movies and accost us with stories of how he had sex with over 1000 women while in the coast guard. The fact that he was 5′0, had spiky white hair and routinely injected his body with unapproved medications made this seem more than unlikely. He sorta looked like this.

In addition to life as a guinea pig, it turns out that Scary Jerry was also a screenwriter. I came home from class one day to find him pacing upstairs with a butcher knife, claiming he needed inspiration for his new movie, called “A Sum of Its Parts.” In this movie, the main character is a societal reject who kills women and takes their best feature to create a new perfect woman who in turns loves the weirdo. Ironically enough, all the characters had names eerily similar to my roommates and I. He then proceeded to list what body part he would harvest from me and each of my friends. Really great. (Incidentally, mine was my butt- even better!)

I wish I could say I had enough smarts to call the cops and turn this weirdo in for being a homicidal maniac. Nope- stupid 19 yr old self kept quiet, Scary Jerry pulled a gun on our neighbor and then skipped town, owing over $3000 in rent.

Moral of the story kids- never, ever trust people who wear white alligator boots. They are nothing but trouble.