About the Time I Yelled at My Roommates in Madrid
Living in a small 4-bed flat in Madrid with three men was already an extreme sport. Imagine a place with two bathrooms but only one shower, shared among four twenty-somethings with wildly different definitions of “hygiene.” I was the only girl. The other three were the kind of boys who think a plate is “clean” if it’s been rinsed under cold water and a prayer.
They never washed their dishes. They smoked enough pot to keep an Amsterdam café in business. There were always random friends hanging around. And two of them — let’s call them Señor Uptight and Don Passive-Aggressive — never even socialized with us. They just lurked in their rooms like Victorian ghosts who vaped.
Then… it happened.
One day, Señor Uptight’s girlfriend came to stay for a few days. That made five people sharing one shower. And, because the universe loves a challenge, she had the brightest ginger-red hair I have ever seen in my life — the kind of hair you could spot from space. Within hours, it was everywhere. In the sink. On the floor. Floating gracefully in the shower like Ariel had just done a quick rinse before heading back to Atlantica.
And that’s when I broke.
Not just “a little annoyed” broke — I went full Disney villain monologue. I marched into the living room, hair in my fist (not mine, obviously), and let loose:
“DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN KNOW HOW TO LIVE WITH OTHER HUMANS? DO YOU REALIZE THIS IS A SHARED SPACE? UNCLOG. THE. FUCKING. SHOWER. WASH YOUR DISHES OR SO HELP ME GOD I WILL PUT THEM IN YOUR BED. AND YOU—” pointing dramatically at Señor Uptight and Don Passive-Aggressive “—YOU THINK YOU’RE ALL HIGH AND MIGHTY BUT YOU’RE JUST DRUNK-ASS POTHEADS WITH NO IDEA HOW TO BE RESPONSIBLE ADULTS.”
Woops.
They just… stared at me. No one said a word. I think one of them blinked twice, but that was the full extent of their contribution.
We still had to live together for a few more months after that. We never spoke about it. I never apologized (oops), but I did eventually realize — look, sometimes you snap. It’s human. We all have a limit, and that day, mine was clogged with red hair.
The important thing is figuring out why you reached that boiling point. Stress. Overwhelm. Feeling unheard. And then, ideally, dealing with it in a way that doesn’t involve shouting about dish-based revenge. But hey — some lessons you learn slowly.
And if you’ve ever been convinced you’re failing at adulthood because you lose your cool sometimes? You’re not. You’re doing the thing. You’re keeping the place running, the shower draining, and yourself (mostly) sane. You’re gettin’ it done, baby — one unclogged drain at a time.
