Our House
We were six of the most uncomplimentary people ever thrown into a house together. I use the term ’house’ loosely, It was a shoebox that, if mobile, could have been a container of stowaways trying to cross the US border. Six people, three bedrooms, plus the extras - the one night-stands, the boyfriends, the friends. Sometimes there wasn’t even floor space. Sometimes you got home to find someone else sleeping in your bed . Sometimes you didn’t even want to go home in fear of the bombshell you’d walk into. This constant struggle for space did nothing to calm our clashing personalities. We grated and grinded against each other for a very long and cold winter. Yet between the constant tirade of “get fucked” and the “fuck offs” we created a family.
I met Clare first. We were bright eyed and bushy tailed as we gushed about the winter to come. Clare was a pro snowboarder compared to me. I was green, and had never even strapped in before but that didn‘t falter my enthusiasm. We talked about the champagne powder that Big White boasted – despite what turned out to be the lowest snowfall on record that season. We talked about the predicted 6:1 ratio of men:woman - which actually turned out to be around 1:1. We fretted about jobs and where we were going to live, and before we knew it, we were roommates. We meet Peta and Guy, a sister/brother combo, as we joined the dog-eats-dog race to find accommodation on a ski resort. I thought Peta was so cool with her hippy headband and facial piercing and Guy wasn‘t bad to look at, so we locked them in as roommates.
The way we got our shoebox really set the tone for the winter. We rang the owners who already had tenants and offered to move in the next day and pay the bond up-front in cash. We told them we were all friends from Sydney who had known each other for years, that we were all non-smokers and would never dream of throwing a party in our humble abode. We now needed two more people whom ‘we had known for years’, and fast.
The first time I met Danny, I rolled my stale-alcohol-soaked eyes and mumbled a hello. He was tall and skinny, with his shirt tucked into his pants, and his pants pulled up to his ribs. He tried desperately to impress us and raved about his cooking skills and his endless collection of movies. When he left, he asked us to “give him a tinkle.” A tinkle? Clare and I sniggered at each other on the couch. To our horror, Peta and Guy seemed to think he was alright, a bit weird, but OK. I didn’t want to seem like a judgmental bitch, so I nodded along in agreement. Next thing Clare and I know, ‘Tinkle’ is moving in.
Guy had a friend in Oz come over to fill the last place. His name was Bummie. If he had a real name, I can’t remember it, and I have never met a more stereotypical ‘true blue’ Australian in my life. He would start every sentence with “How’s this...”, no matter how mundane it was. As in: “Oh how’s this; the drains blocked.” His preferred dress around the house consisted of under-sized green and yellow stubbies, subjecting us to his floppy biceps and hairy keg. When he told us stories of either his triumphs - but more often his failures - of seducing women, he would jut his head out like a proud peacock, put one finger in the air and squeal, “riiiiiiping”. These stories made us tiptoe around the house like it was a minefield, scared for weeks to sit on the couch in case we come across some substance that Bummie had desposited there.
So then there were six: Clare, Peta, Guy, Danny, Bummie and I.
At first we were all so polite with each other, there weren’t any problems. It was all ‘you take the first shower.’, ‘no after you’, and ‘do you want a seat? Here, take mine’. We were so nervous to be liked, and scared that if we showed scales behind our bright smiles, we’d be on the outside. Then, the little niggles began to surface, things like food or alcohol getting stolen, with false promises of replacement. We resorted to stashing supplies in our rooms, and writing messages on containers in the fridge like: “Guy’s lunch - get fucked”. We tried to cook together most of the time, but it tended to be the girls in the kitchen, guys on the couch. Master chef Danny only ended up cooking twice the whole winter, yet he always seemed very curious with our meals. Every time we cooked one of our packet-to-table meals, he would harp up, “so what did you do? Cut up some mushrooms and onions, heat up the sauce, cook the pasta, and then HEY PRESTO?” I smile now, but that ‘hey presto’ made my bones cringe.
Clare and Guy got it on soon after we moved in. I know, because Clare’s and my room was right next to the spa outside. I heard the giggles and squeals from Clare, and Guy’s low voice highlighted with ‘fuckin’ every second word he spoke. Even worst was when it went quiet. It was time for my trusty friends, ear plugs, to do their stuff and to pull the covers tight around my face. When Peta found out, she was furious. Screaming matches began with Guy and Peta ending with slammed doors, while the rest of us stared blankly at the television. Peta felt abandoned by Guy. They had come to do the ski season together, then head to South America. Clare and Guy became inseparable as the season wore on, stuck in their own world, coupled hopelessly in love.
Next door became our ‘go-to’ place when our place fell apart. It was a shoebox identical to ours, but no one was living there. Upon occasion the owners would come up, or rent it out, but for the most part it was vacant.
Guy got pussy red spots all over him, an obscure disease called hot tub folliculitis from the unsanitary conditions of our spa. Next door’s spa was pristine and clean and could have contained natural spring water compared to our murky mess. So we did what good neighbours would do, and used other people’s property as our own. Well at least we did until they bolted it shut!
The second ‘neighbourhood-sharing’ incident occurred when our hot water cylinder broke. It was minus 25 degrees outside, and we were now forced to shower in hypothermic water. We discovered that the door of the adjoining unit was unlocked, and figured that it was only neighbourly that they let us use their hot water. I mean it wasn’t like we were stealing the television or anything.
The real ordeal though was when Guy fell on our toilet and broke the cistern a few days before we departed. This time, there was no denying it - we flat out stole. We six were broke beyond belief and relying on the 600 dollars we’d paid in bond money each. That sum, quite literally, looked like it would be flushed down the drain. So we stole the neighbour’s cistern to replace our own, but we were fair crooks and left 50 dollars to go towards the payment of their insurance excess.
Every moment was a crazy one in that house. You couldn’t come home and relax. One day I came home to be greeted by the others viewing a very disturbing video. It captured Danny dancing, drunk beyond belief, in a blue dress. The sight was hilarious, a lanky man dancing (if you can call it that?) to techno music, and beat boxing (if you can call it that?) at the same time. Then it dawned on me that that the dress looked familiar, that it was in fact MY blue dress! And Danny had neglected to wear any underwear! I have never been able to wear that blue dress again.
Even though our house was messed up, we did have some sweet moments. At Christmas, we dragged a branch into our house and decorated it. We organized a secret Santa between the six of us, and mostly brought each other very tasteful gifts - with the exception of a framed photo of Danny in the infamous blue dress. We cooked a roast and sat around the table like a family. Danny was the oddball, and even though he grated my spine we all looked out for each other. Peta especially took him under her wing and invited him out everywhere and stuck up for him. If one of us girls were feeling down, Danny would buy us some chocolate to cheer us up. Peta and I had some insane moments rolling around on the floor laughing, dressing up in ridiculous clothes and snowboarding down our driveway. The moments when we all snowboarded together were blissful and drama free.
Even though Clare and I joked that our house could be a bad reality TV show, we were all sad to say goodbye. We were all looking forward to leaving a ski resort that didn’t rise to our expectations, but it still felt like a kick in the guts to leave each other. Tears rolled, and notes of love and promises to meet up once a year were exchanged. It was a house of dysfunction, yet somehow we created bonds that will last a lifetime.
