Roommates

My sister and I shared an apartment when I was 28 and she was 21.

It was at the beginning of my career and she had just finished college and gotten her first job. We were beyond poor. Both paying off school loans so we needed roommates and we knew we could live together.

We found this great apartment in a very old but beautiful building.
The woodwork and architectural details of this place were fabulous.
These little touches were all over the building and the apartments.
What wasn’t so great was the climb to our apartment.
We lived on the 3rd floor. It was 6 flights of winding stairs, with landings in between each flight which I like to think was to allow you to catch your breath.
Probably not what the architect had in mind but that was my theory.
This was a beautiful wooden staircase of dark cherry wood. The balusters or spindles were beautifully carved pieces of wood. The staircase was much wider than they are today.
From the moment you opened the heavy double doors at the front entrance you knew this building was special and built in a time of great workmanship. Sadly that made it old.

How my sister and I did this trek to our apartment every day, several times a day so easily now makes me out of breath just thinking about it. Carrying groceries up these winding wooden stairs was the only time I noticed how many stairs there were.
Otherwise we never really seemed to mind. Aah, to be young.

My Grandmother (refer to Grandma C in previous post) would visit and she would stand outside our door and refuse to ring the bell until she caught her breath.
We could hear her…well let's say we could hear someone panting outside our door so we had to look. We peered out the peep hole and we could see her white hair and we would just giggle.
We didn’t want to make her feel badly about the huffing and puffing so we let her catch her breath and wait for the knock on the door.
We never told her we knew she was out there trying to catch her breath.
We let it be her little secret.

One day as we opened the door she informed us that it would be most hospitable if we would have beverages, preferably cocktails, on the landings as you go up for your guests ….it would make the climb so much better you know Peggy.
This made one of us instantly pour her a glass of her favorite “beverage”
I mentioned that having beverages on each landing could also make her have to use the bathroom. To which she replied, “all the faster I could make that damn climb”
We would tease her that seeing her granddaughters should be enough incentive.
She told us it was but begged us to promise that our next apartment was on the ground floor or at least have elevators.

We actually had a lot of friends do the same as Grandma C.
They were young and they too would stand at the door until they caught their breath. Sometimes I would hear them and just open the door. "Busted," I would say as I opened the door. I didn't give them a break like I did Grandma C.

I had a date once tell me he must really want to go out with me to climb Mt. Everest to just knock on my door. He complained about it every time he came over and in fact one day he called and said he thought instead of him coming to get me first why don’t I drive and meet him so he didn’t have to do “those stairs”   Really? I’m not worth walking up a few stairs?  I did not meet him that day. I also didn’t see him after that because I figured if he didn’t think I was worth the walk up a lousy few flights of stairs he was not for me. Besides I really don't like whiners…..never went out with him again.

Then there were the boyfriends who stayed over with my sister and I (sluts) who would run down the stairs and across the street to this great Mom & Pop deli and buy some slab bacon and  eggs and other assorted breakfast foods and then come back running up the steps to make us breakfast. We dated both of those men for a long while. They never complained about the stairs and they made us breakfast with homemade hash browns….you can’t dump those kind quickly.

But living with my sister was great.
For me aside from my husband she was my best roommate that I ever had.
You know each other so well. You’ve been sharing a bathroom for your whole life so having a 1 bathroom apartment is no big deal to you.
Our boyfriends on the other hand found it weird.
If I was in the shower and my sister had to use the bathroom it was no big deal to us.
She’d knock and walk in while yelling, “Sorry but I gotta go”
Apparently the rest of the world finds that gross.
My sister loves baths, which I hate, and she would be in a bubble bath sipping on some wine on a Friday night and I would put the seat down and sit and talk about our day.
Our friends found that weird too and to us it was normal and sister time.
Growing up we had 1 bathroom for a very long time with 5 girls all in the house.
(Dad took the other one and God forbid we use his bathroom!)
With 5 girls in one house you are always walking in on one another in various forms of dress. We’ve seen it all.
So there really wasn’t much that was weird to us until someone pointed it out.

One night having one bathroom was very difficult for my sister.
I had a little too much to drink as a 20 something will tend to do.
I passed out on the bathroom floor after hanging on to the toilet for a long time.
My sister had to use the bathroom and I wouldn’t budge and she couldn’t get the door open. Oh she yelled all right and beat on that door from what I was told later.
But I was passed out (from too much vodka) and I didn’t hear a thing.
To this day I can not drink vodka.
Poor thing actually went in the kitchen sink. Which I might point out is much grosser than me sitting on the commode talking with her while she takes a bubble bath.
It was my fault and I felt terrible about it.
I don’t think I would have reacted any differently than she did. Oh boy was she mad at me.

Somehow I went to work that day. I found a note on my bedroom door that said she had to talk to me when we got home from work. DO NOT LEAVE it said in large black letters.
Now I knew she was mad and she had ever right to be.
Nothing like being reprimanded by ones younger sister!

A few weeks ago when we were all in the same town together visiting our parents we all laughed about some of these stories.
She and I have such fond memories of our time living together.

Besides who else other than your sister could eat a whole hot fudge cake with you during PMS week for dinner and not make you feel guilty?

Who was your favorite roommate other than a significant other?