Either you are a bachelor that lives like...well...how you're known to live or you are an innocent bystander that has been bombarded by treacherous bachelor stories - one way or another. It's scary, I tell ya, and the following stories are no different...
(Content has been edited for clarity).
The Attempt To Live Normal, Employed Lives
“So there we were, my friend Chris and I, jobless and bored at his apartment for the foreseeable future. A friend of ours was courteous enough to bring a case of drinks over for us to share with him, and we made a deal. As soon as we sobered up, we would start making honest attempts at living normal, employed, lives.
Eleven days later, we had an entire bathtub full of empty bottles. We had gone through a half-pound of green, donated plasma three times, been kicked out of McDonald’s – twice – on 39 cent hamburger Wednesdays, found ourselves in a Bellview, Florida, trap house, and spent two evenings in the Alachua Regional Emergency Room. It was on that 11th day while partaking in pickles and mustard directly from their respective jars that we decided we needed to sober up.
It was on the 15th day that we sharpened broomstick handles on the apartment complex treadmills. Broke and hungry, we decided we were going to try to kill deer that often roamed the parking lot at night by spearing them from a moving car. Our plan was eventually foiled when my friend’s fiancé threatened to kick us both out if we killed any animals.
She treated us to Olive Garden that night.”
Socks Or Napkins
“Coming home for Christmas has made me realize I’ve done some pretty horrible things while living by myself.
-I’ve lived off nothing but peanut butter and noodles for five days because I was too lazy to walk to the grocery store. It’s a pretty good combination, actually. It tastes like pad thai.
-I’ve thrown out dirty cutlery that I didn’t feel like washing.
-Haven’t put pants on for days at a time.
-The socks I’m wearing double as napkins.
Put me to shame!”
For The Love Of The Smoothie
“After leaving a smoothie maker overnight with the leftovers of a banana and peanut butter mix, it felt like too much of an effort to wash the thing out with a scrubbing brush.
I hatched a plan: I would fill the jug with a mix of hot water and washing up liquid and turn it on, with the lid on and locked in of course.
So, I switched it on and took a step back, perhaps to bathe in my own ingenuity. A moment after things started going a little wrong, the lid had been pushed off by the rapidly expanding growth of bubbles. I dashed towards it, but it was already covered in a thick, uncontrollable froth.
Unbelievably, due to my panic, the first thing I did was not turn it off but tried to pick it up and pour the bubbly mixture into the sink. I finally realized that this was pretty much the most moronic thing I have ever done, but it was too late, the water had gotten inside the appliance and formed a circuit with my hands.
Next thing I experienced was regaining consciousness at the other side of the kitchen.”
‘It Turns Out My Oven Was Broken…’
“-Spent first three months with one piece of furniture: A mattress on the floor.
-First furniture purchase: Computer hutch.
-Next furniture: Fake leather loveseat found on the side of the road.
-Boxes and boxes of ‘adult films.’
-Only drank in bottles. Kept every six-pack. After I ran out of room (over a year later), I lined them up on the street, taking up 75 linear feet of the curb. Until recycling came for them, we had bottles tourists milling about, pointing out the ones they’d tried or wanted to try.
-Homebrewed. I had four five-gallon carboys fermenting at a time in my living room one winter. I just turned the furnace down to 55°F and kept a space heater going in the bathroom and an electric blanket in the bedroom.
-I lived there nearly two years before I found out the oven didn’t work. I found out by trying to bake a previously frozen lasagna. During preheating the apartment filled with black smoke, setting off the smoke detector. I pulled the smoke detector’s battery only to find it had A/C backup. I flipped every breaker before finding I had to pull the main to kill the A/C backup. Then I just sat there in the dark, drinking and smoking until the air cleared.
-Right next to the nonworking oven was a $450 espresso maker, impeccably maintained.
-I became a regular at the nightclub within walking distance, not because the dancers were worth looking at but because it was the cheapest place in my neighborhood to drink.
-I moved in with a box of 12 plates and 12 bowls. I unpacked them one at a time, using it once then leaving it in the sink until it became unwashable disgusting, then threw it out and got the next one. I still had three plates when I moved out.
-When I moved out six years later, I threw out a dozen eggs I’d bought when I moved in.
-Move out day was also the first time I deliberately cleaned the toilet. I discovered that once the bowl got slippery enough with mildew, poop would never stick to it, achieving a certain equilibrium I didn’t want to mess with.”
‘Giggles To Myself’
“-Hot dogs come fully cooked.
-Hold yesterday’s shirt up to the light, realize I almost came on my face, wear again.
-Go through toilet paper like nobody’s business, only crap once every few days.
-Forgot to flush after my last pee? Nope, the bowl’s just yellow.
-Giggle to myself, on the rare occasion anyone puts their bare skin on my furniture.
-Finish watching ‘adult films’ with the volume cranked; you could hear it clearly and then hear neighbors speaking voice through the walls.
-If pizza boxes will be new currency following the apocalypse, I’m rich.
-Vacuum fruitflies then vacuum a spider to finish the job.
-No clean bowls/glasses/cups? 10 plates of cereal.
-Girl coming over? Toilet brush entire bathroom.
-Wake up (really) early on weekends, do nothing, complain about being tired on Monday.”
At The Frat House
“Back in college, my house was the ‘hangout house.’ The door never locked and no one knocked, they just came in.
One day one of my friends who was the vice president of a fraternity stopped by with two girls to show them around and introduce them to the residents of the hangout house.
They walked in the door and found that the living room was empty except for me. I was in my underwear sitting at my desk playing ‘World of Warcraft’ with a bowl of parmesan cheese with a spoon it sitting next to me (I had been eating it like cereal). I was in the process of shotgunning out of the spout of a bag of sangria by holding the entire thing over my head.
I stopped, wiped off my mouth and said: ‘One second, I’ll go put on pants.'”
The Mighty Touch
“I ate Spam Ramen with Johnny’s Seasoning Salt. It gave me minor salt poisoning and a massive headache for days but ate the leftovers a week later.
When I was unemployed, I would sleep until 4 p.m., and wake up and go to happy hour with work friends.
I would pass out directly after touching off, wake up in my computer chair an hour later with my junk in one hand, and a half-spilled drink in the other. I’d drink and go back to touching myself, again.”
‘I Don’t Own Cutlery’
“If all my dishes are dirty I over them in tin foil and re-use them.
If my curtains fall due to too many drinks the night before, I gaffer-tape them back over the windows.
I can’t be bothered to take out trash bags for ages, so I put 10 outside at once and wonder why the garbage truck doesn’t take them all away.
My lowest point was seeing one of my friends eating sweet and sour sauce out of a tub with a playing card for dinner and then heading off to the pub for opening time at 11 a.m. because the drawers, boxes, and cupboards stuffed full with miles and miles of randomly assorted cabling.”
GAINS!
“I found a couch in the dumpster at the end of the year. I told my roommates I bought it on Craigslist after removing chicken legs from cushions. I kept the couch through college. I graduated college and kept the couch for more time and ended up becoming a non-bachelor. Even after that, I kept the couch for more time and finally ended up selling the couch for two six packs.”
Art Is Life
“Being lazy is an art:
Hungry? Order tons of Pizza Hut.
Too much food? Save pasta for tomorrow.
Left the pasta out for 24 hours? Nuke that crap and eat it anyways.
Half-rotten pasta was exploding out of your throat, but the toilet lid is down? Vomit in the shower.
Bathtub drain clogged with bodily fluids? Avoid showering.
Can’t bear to smell yourself three days later? Apply upside-down bucket to avoid the pool of vomit and standing water while showering.
The bathtub full of week-old vomit and soap-water? Go to work, that stuff will slowly drain by the time you have to shower again.”
All In The Name Of Getting Gone
“Purchased a bunch of Legos and action figures because I can, and there’s nobody around to tell me to grow up.
-Bought an arsenal of NERF and melee weapons so my roommate (bachelor) and I could fight a bloody battle in our respective blanket and couch forts.
-Filled sippy cup with drinks so I could watch a movie, get gone, and lay down. All without fear of spillage…or movement.
-Filled a mixing bowl with cereal (honey nut cheerios) and milk and ate that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
-Frustrated that I couldn’t watch Netflix on my big screen TV at the same time that I played PC games, so I moved my PC into the living room. I can now watch movies while waiting to respawn.
-Buy new silverware to eat Chinese delivery food (they never give me any) instead of washing dirty silverware in the sink.
-Tape a bottle of Colt 45 to each hand before watching Edward Scissorhands so I could sympathize with him…and get going while doing it.
-Buy nachos, salsa, A-1 sauce, and Season All in bulk. The first two as a staple diet, the second two to make anything taste good, no matter how cheap or bland.”
Drinks For Dinner
“-I used my cat as a mop.
-I’ve thrown out dishes because they had sat in the sink too long to ever become clean again.
-I used to eat Spaghetti-O’s straight from the can to avoid any cooking
-I’ve enjoyed a drink in the shower so that I could drink it as fast as I wanted without having to worry about making a spillage mess
-I have spent time drinking with cookies and pie for dinner – on any a night
-I put on a bra over my t-shirt and then a hoodie on top of that, simply to avoid changing clothes
(Oh yeah… I’m a girl).”
Like Camping In The Living Room
“I bought a TV dinner at the grocery store and couldn’t wait to take it home, so I snuck into their break room to eat it.
I also rented a one-bedroom apartment and never used the bedroom, I only stayed in the main room with a sleeping bag, picnic chair, folding table, and television.”
“In My Basement Apartment”
“-I Spent a year bumming around. I’d move from spare room to spare room, couch to couch, and so I had no real furniture. Anything I owned had to fit in my Honda Civic. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have it for long.
-For two years, I used a broken mini fridge as a desk and cooler. Laid it on its back, filled with ice and drinks (taken from neighbor’s party the night before, to which I wasn’t invited) and placed my laptop atop the door.
-After the mini-fridge, I was given the bottom part of a Playskool kids’ outdoor set, which I used for 18 months or so until I repurposed it as an ottoman.
-Every other week for a year or two I made 10 pounds of spaghetti (fettucini if I was feeling ambitious, angel hair if I was feeling truly lazy), which I would combine with 10 jars of sauce and 5 pounds of ground beef in a giant chili pot. I’d eat that for every meal for 14 days, then repeat. When I’d start to get sick of eating the same thing, I’d swipe sauce packets from restaurants, and thus starting the spaghetti fusion craze. Honey mustard spaghetti, sweet-and-sour spaghetti, teriyaki, duck sauce, relish, you name it. Eventually, someone pointed out that I was risking malnourishment because I had too little variety in my diet. So, I bought multivitamins – problem solved.
-I had a basement apartment for a while. The stairs leading down into it were lined with big oak trees on either side. In the autumn leaves filled up the walkway and eventually made their way into the apartment. Over time I got used to them, but when I had some people over the following spring, I found myself raking my living room out of necessity.
-I once made the handle from a leftover Chinese takeout box into a makeshift fork, to eat said leftovers and having no clean utensils.
-I use to eat breakfast in the shower during the winter. I took oatmeal packets and hot cocoa packets into with shower with a bowl. First I would make oatmeal with hot shower water and drink it (no spoons, I’m in the shower already). I’d put cocoa in the same bowl, fill the cup up under the shower head and stir with my fingers then drink. Ah, breakfast!
-I spent two hours one weekend looking up how to make my dishwasher detergent to avoid a five minute trip to the supermarket. I still use the recipe from time to time now when I run out. (For your information: fill dishwasher soap tubs with baking soda, top with a single small drop of liquid soap, and then sprinkle a pinch of salt on top. Run dishwasher as normal).
-In dire need to get my stuff off the floor in a basement prone to minor flooding, I had a brainstorm that led to borrowing some milk crates from behind the local high school cafeteria. I made them into shelves and zip-tied them together. Months later someone backed into our mailbox. My solution, find three more milk crates, put a cinderblock in bottom one, zip-tie mailbox to the top one. And it stayed like that for two whole years.
-I got kicked out of the place I was staying without warning and without anywhere to go. The next day I got fired for not showing up on time. Instead of worrying about another job or place, I just left town for two months and drove to Texas. I got a backcountry camping pass at a national park and spent 45 days just hanging out, hiking, eating beans from a can, and bathing in a river (you’d call it swimming while clothed, but whatever). Either way, I ate better and kept better hygiene than usual.”
Living For Free
“-I quit my job as a software engineer for Telecom NZ (management was incredibly lame and kept hiring people who didn’t know what they were doing) and I had around eight months worth of savings.
-My grandfather had a tin hut near a river, with two rooms…one had the coal range, and the other had a bed. So I went down there, and I went white-baiting for the season and made some modest earnings (nothing like I was making…), but the funniest thing is, three years later I’m still here. It’s peaceful, it’s right next to a river, and it overlooks a beach. I live off fish, paua, kina, and rabbit (with beef and sheep in between). My total living costs are $30 a month for 3G internet. Power comes from a vertical wind generator. I now have a full-time job, working remotely for the NZ Government, and I’m making around 80 thousand a year – with virtually no living costs.
-I even have a Christmas tree, and I just caught a nice salmon for dinner.”
Crossed The Line
“All the dishes were in the sink, and starting to get funky, so I put them all in the shower and doused them with soap, Comet, bleach, Mr. Muscle, and detergent. I opened the window, turned on the fan, turned on the shower, sealed up the door, and it worked pretty well.
That was a long time ago, I was pretty baked when I thought of it, and in hindsight, I probably could have killed everyone in the apartment. But there was no way I was going to be doing dishes.
Also, once, just once, I was hungry, had to crap, and needed a smoke all at the same time, so I had lunch and a smoke while taking a crap, with the door open. That was the day I realized I crossed some bachelor line.”
Because, Why Not?
“-Stored and rebuilt my motorcycle in my kitchen during winter.
-Once spent an entire summer wearing the same jeans. On a farm. Cleaning out hog pens. Without washing them.
-Lived in an apartment outfitted with hardwood floors for two years and never mopped once.
-Alternately used my summer tires and winter tires stacked in pairs and topped with tempered glass as end tables.”