No Nudes Is Good Nudes

In 2003, we remodeled our (gloriously, Brady's-esque '70's) kitchen. (When I say "we" remodeled it, I mean "we" paid a lot of people to do it). These things always take longer and cost much more than you think they will. Also, we were new to having a mortgage and a bit freaked out about the cash outlay. Ergo, we decided that we should get a roommate for a short time during and after this renovation to help defray the costs. (Important aside: Nobody over the age of 25 should have a roommate, and once you are out of the roommate situation for good, you should never, NEVER willingly go back into it). Hindsight is 20/20.

So is heinie sight...but we'll get to that in a minute.

Canetto posted a notice at his office and almost immediately we found someone to rent our room. He lived in the DC area during the week for work, and then went home to the NYC area on weekends, where he owned a home. He worked long hours and essentially just needed a place to sleep during the week. He was also willing to live with us and pay rent during our kitchen renovation. Perfect, right?

He was not a bad roommate, just a little odd. He tended to know everything about everything and Canetto and I just took to not really socializing with him much. One day, he found us in our sun room and told us that he was engaged -- to someone he had met six weeks prior. This woman was from another country, so the whole situation just kinda screamed "green card" to us.

Shortly after his engagement announcement, we were going out of town for Memorial Day weekend -- at least part of it. We probably told our roommate that we'd be back SUNDAY about five times, because he told us his girlfriend would be visiting and we didn't want any surprises.

We came home Sunday evening, as scheduled, and tried to pull into our garage, but both sides were blocked by cars (his and hers, we guessed). I stormed into the house, upset because I wanted to unpack and relax. I called our roommate's name...no answer...looked in his room -- nowhere. So, I went up to our room and looked out the window, onto the patio and swimming pool below, and there our roommate and his girlfriend sat --at our table next to the pool. I remember thinking, "wow...that's an odd bathing suit" and having to do a double-take once I realized that her flesh-colored bathing suit was actually flesh-colored FLESH! Yup. Totally naked -- sitting with feet propped up on the table and smoking a cigarette.

My first reaction was to laugh, and of course to grab Canetto -- which I did. Now, to be fair, this was a very attractive woman (again, lending credence to our green card theory, as our roommate was no prize), so when Tim peeked out the window -- he looked back at me and asked, "is it okay if I look again?".

We decided that the best way to handle this was for Canetto to pretend to be surprised as he walked into the back yard and "caught" them. (How noble of him to volunteer for this duty, eh?) He did this, and she got startled, screamed, and ran inside to get dressed. The more I thought about it, the more grossed out I got. I started thinking about all the other places in my house where she may have had her naked butt (er, "dufty doodle") while we were out of town. Was she having coffee while sitting naked at my kitchen table? Watching TV on my sofa au naturel? ACK!

He moved out shortly thereafter. We spent a lot of time superchlorinating the pool that summer.