My roommate

My roommate's name is Amichai Kinsberg. He is from Brooklyn. He has a very steady girlfriend. He is also quite possibly one of the most annoying people I have known. I don't know, we're trying to decide if he hasn't matured, so that he acts like a sixth grader, or if he is positioned to be the annoying father, making bad jokes, and unable to shake off.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. He has gotten better, to an extant. But still, the amount of times he has stuck his foot in his mouth in the short time I've known him, as he embarrassed himself and others is staggering. I started out with a list of the stupid things that he's said, trying to show him, "look, don't say these things out loud," but he made me destroy it. I complied. Still, I wish I could have him mature to an extent. All the racist jokes, the laughing at his own body emissions, and the swearing....

It's not that I'm opposed to swearing, but he will take a term and use it as his new word. He will walk into a room and repeat "fanta dai" (Norwegian) over and over again. He's not angry, just repeating his new word.

I think one incident in particular best sums it up. I'm talking to this girl about philosophy, it's a rather heavy discussion, and Ami comes over at the point where we were discussing Emmanuel Kant. He listens for a second to the conversation.

"Hey, oh my God, did you just say 'cunt?'" Which, ok, wouldn't be so bad as a one time joke, but for the next week he would keep going up to this girl or me, and would say something like, "So what about cunts?" I've got Beavis or Butthead for a roommate.

But at the same time...

You feel sorry for him. After years of having a kid brother, you learn to protect and feel for the kids that annoy you in a childish manner. (If you're reading this Pip, he's much worse than you.) So, I do feel sorry for him, as much as he could use a reverse lobotomy. See, he's quitting. The entire program. He says that Israel is not for him, that he can't stand this kibbutz life, he misses New York, he misses his girl, etc.

So, he's leaving, and basically we've found a reason to appreciate him. I'm not sure why he's leaving; he claims it has nothing to do with the way we demean him. I don't think that's quite true. I've tried to stop, I really have, we all have, but as John put it, dragging his fingers towards his palms, "you can't help it. You have to point out to him why he's so annoying."

And so, while you are groaning at his annoying tendencies, you are trying to get him to realize that he shouldn't leave, that he should stick with us throughout the program. Kind of a catch-22, I suppose.

Two things bother me about all this. First, is that he in fact bothers me. Not to an extant of violence, but yet to a certain extant, and with this, I'm not sure that I want him to stay. There are only twenty-one of us in the program, and only seven from the US. Since he's not a complete jerk, he should stay, if nothing else, so that he'll be a number. But he's the type who gives Americans a bad name. It's like an old weighing scale. I would never feel that he should be dismissed from the program, but I'm not sure I'll miss him, if he decides to go. It's important to have a roommate, but I generally live in seclusion anyway. So... there is a chance that I want this innocent guy to leave the country...

The second problem, is I'm being the jerk I don't want to be. First of all, I'm being a snob. I can't just let his idiosyncrasies pass by. God forbid. If I could, I would, but I don't seem to want to. Maybe I'm afraid of being made fun of again, I don't know. But as it is, my roommate wants to go home early, and I seem to be nonchalant towards the entire affair.

Get me outa here!!!

Wanna read the last one?

Wanna read the next one?

Take me back to the list

---

Michael Kadish
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." -- Anybody who has ever misquoted Neil Armstrong, who actually said, "That's one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind."

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws