Young Writers Society

“Ignore it and it will go away.”

What a great motto to live by. Backhanded compliments from colleagues at work? Ignore it. Roommate uses your butter again and sullies it with breadcrumbs? Ignore it. Prolonged periods of dissociation resulting from an “astute lack of human empathy”? What do the psychologists know—they’re not considered real doctors in my mind.

Ignore it.

People expected too much from me anyway—that level of commitment isn’t healthy. And once those chains of expectation were tossed to the curb, the new outlook I've achieved has been oh so much easier. Especially now that I’m not the one whose at fault. Things are just. Free-er, you know? 

This new outlook's made me aware of a few things.

For one, that little voice in my head made me realize what biological waste was sharing my apartment. Years, no centuries, of trial-by-fire evolution, slowly and painstakingly rooting out all imperfections in the human line as nature ran its purifying course; all culminating in this utter waste of human being. I couldn't look at this man without seeing his ancestors' ashamed faces hovering dejectedly in my peripherals. It got so bad, I couldn't be in the same room without falling to heated, under-breath debates with said voice. And let me tell you, it got oh so convincing. I—no, NATURE could only stand so much. Something had to be done. My whole new outlook was at stake and he was crushing it—and my take-out Chipotle—with his grimy little fingers. So when said roommate decided to play hookie from the university for 3 weeks straight, I knew that was the last straw. The one slip needed to send me over the edge. And my gosh, that little voice never gave such practical advice since I quit paying taxes (more on that later).

We had always rubbed each other the wrong way—personality clash or whatever you want to call it, I don't care. Let me ask you this though: what decent person steals someone else's milk? They don’t. No normal, society-contributing person does that. But that's because he wasn’t a normal, society-contributing person—I had to start marking how full my milk jug was so I could tell when he was leeching off me. I'm the one who got the job at the greasy burger joint. I'm entitled to drink my own calcium juice. Thank you.

Get this though, I come back at 11:00 p.m. after quitting said job—so I was already in a bad mood—and this weed-wacker of a man was refilling it back up to the line with water. 

This gowk—this utter foot fungi. 

So he didn’t appreciate the space he was taking up? Fine then. Someone else would. It was a quick fix really—the hardest part was finding where to relocate him. I figured he’d probably appreciate the attic more than the dust bunnies would. 

It seems a bit drastic, I know—and admittedly I was second guessing myself too at that point, but then I remembered that he was only an art major. Not like he would be contributing much to society anyway. To smooth everything over though, I donated all his art supplies to the children’s hospital. They saw way more use there than they would’ve otherwise—better results too.

A few blissfully quiet months later and this cop shows up and starts asking about a college student that went missing a few months back. A kid around my age from New Jersey who moved out here to major in graphic design or some other kind of useless humanitarian subject—got all huffy with me when I didn’t know who the crap he was talking about. Good sir, I don’t care enough to remember the names of my own parental units; and you expect me to somehow remember every arbitrary human being I come into contact with?

This man then had the audacity to ask why there were "suspicious stains" on my couch. My guy, I know I’m out 2 months without a job and can’t afford to buy stain-removal, but there's no need to point out my destituteness.

It wasn’t hard to see that this guy was sub-par at his job: asking the wrong questions, knocking on the wrong doors, and not adhering to common decency. I already had my patience stretched thin over Daylight Savings as it was, so really not the best time to be pointing fingers at my Craigslist furniture. Beyond that, the man had me just ever so slightly concerned when considering he was part of the local law-enforcement. Really, how can people be expected to rest easy when their policemen are as much at fault as the people they’re arresting? My gosh—I had a  niece of some kind who lived in the area, last time I checked.

I couldn't just let him run amuck, my civic duty wouldn't allow it. So I decided to help my fellow men by quite literally killing two birds with one stone. You’re welcome. Now he can keep my roommate company in the attic.

I think it was later that same night—I finished up my Christmas shopping, thanked the nice old lady at the counter, and was leaving the Dollar Tree when a parade’s worth of police cars sped past and down the icy street; sirens blaring and everything like tomorrow wasn’t a holiday or anything. I just stood in the doorway, winding up my scarf in a European knot, and watched as the whole procession swerved into my dinky….apartment complex not two blocks away…

Hm.

I started down the street in the other direction, my grocery bag straining precariously with my load of Pringles and off-brand animal crackers. The thought then occurred to me: "Do police even get the holidays off?"

They don’t—as it turns out. And for the record, the idea of “ignore it and it’ll go away” doesn’t apply to being run down by the state militia. Unfortunately.