by Andrew Greenburg
Starting a group home is a motherfucking pain in my oversized, ‘roid-encrusted bunghole serious business, an effort not to be taken lightly. It requires dedication, understanding, strength of character and an extremely high tolerance for other people's asinine, insipid, worthless, inane, moronic, boring, irrelevant, absurd, senseless, self-centered and high-pitched bullshit. To facilitate your worthy and self-sacrificing attempts to open this center of human love and respect, you kindly nephew Andrew offers the following checklist.
Milk crates: These are available from behind any grocery store outside of the real city. If they leave ‘em out, they deserve to get robbed.
Broken appliances: What's the fun of living with 12 other people if the refrigerator works?
An asshole: I don't mean the tunnel of the cocoa metro and its whistle of love. I mean a sorry, pampered, slimy, unwashed klepto of a roommate. Every group home has one. One?
Ha! -- most have a whole building full.
Wading pool: No explanation needed.
Building code violations: I especially like it when your balcony is ready to fall into the street below at the slightest misstep.
Pasta: Tons and tons of pasta. You can use it to pick your teeth, put in your roommates' shoes, pour it on them at 3 AM and occasionally eat it.
One rag: If your parents dare set foot in the group home, put this is the living room as if that toxic dump is what is left after you clean. You'll never see ‘em again.
Old, old TeflonTM pans: Nothing adds flavor to scrambled eggs like large flakes of non-stick surface.
A miser: I know that I can't get along without one roommate who stands in front of the air conditioning with an Ithica Streetsweeper, refusing to let you turn it on until August 23 -- and then only until Labor Day.
Long hair: If everyone has long hair, then you don't have to argue over whose clump is clogging the toilet.
Mice living in the stove: The skittering adds life to any home.
A history: The best group homes have served as such all through the ages -- the Hippie House, Teenage Love Blue, the Ramen Empire and more.
A popcorn plant growing in the sink: Okay, the rest of the stuff is really extraneous. This is the only real necessity.
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