When you are living in a London share-house, you never quite know what you are going to come home to. A spotless kitchen might have been destroyed by someone’s late-night baking frenzy. Someone might be crying on the couch after a particularly nasty fight with their significant other. On a Saturday morning, you might even be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a mysterious peroxide-blonde slinking down the stairs, trying to avoid detection.
The unpredictability of sharing your home with virtual strangers is both the best thing and the worst thing about living away from home. On one hand, you are given the unprecedented opportunity to co-exist with people from all around the world, learning and growing as a result. That is part of what makes the London experience so unique.
It was a pretty typical Friday night. A few home-made burgers, some rubbish television and lengthy philosophical discussions about whether we can be bothered going to the pub. That is when our Polish housemate got home from work. Well, I say ‘work’, when what I really mean is a lengthy barbeque on his job site that left him in a dizzying state of inebriation.
The first hint was when he sat on the edge of the couch, grabbed a butter knife and stabbed the side of his Tyskie can. Beer sprayed across the room, while Mr Polish tore open the can and sucked down every last millilitre of alcohol. After a loud belch, he started making a guttural buzzing sound like he was a fridge that was ready to overheat.
Then he grabbed another can, and did it all over again.
His crowning moment, however, came a few hours later. After dancing around the living room to a song playing inside his head, and falling on top of other housemates, Mr Polish went upstairs and brought down a CD player that looked like it had come straight from the 1990s. He plugged it in and stared at it silently for a moment. As we watched on in horror he grunted, picked it up and hurled it across the room like a discus thrower before promptly falling into the TV and passing out.
The TV survived. The CD player was not so lucky. It took three of us to carry Mr Polish upstairs and (literally) throw him into his room.
He rose the next morning, not remembering a single thing about the night before. When he saw his shattered CD player, he put his hands to his head and let out a loud “NOOO! WHY DO I DO THIS? I AM NEVER DRINKING AGAIN!” He sat down and had a Tyskie around three minutes later.
That’s the joy of being in a share house: you don’t need to go out to find a source of entertainment.