A lot of readers have asked about my roommate, Brian, who used to be one of my favorite topics. Oh, he's still around. Though living with him and his girlfriend, a frequent visitor, is like living with an old married couple. She makes his lunch every day, and they go to bed about 9:30 p.m. I think the only thing that keeps him going is watching rerun after rerun of "King of Queens." When I question him about it, Brian says, "Karo, leave me alone. I live my life in syndication."
You know when you get off a long flight, you're kind of jetlagged for a while and sometimes you can't fall asleep? Brian is immune. The kid is tired 24 hours a day and can sleep at will. He once told me, "You know, I'd to go to bed at 7 p.m. if it was socially acceptable."
Although Brian will soon move in with his girlfriend, sometimes I wonder if, in his mind, he's already married and living in the suburbs. The other day, I borrowed his keys and noticed that on his key chain were rows and rows of those little, plastic barcodes that you can swipe at the drugstore, the supermarket, Price Club, etc. People are always telling me that I'm turning into my dad, but I never realized that Brian was turning into my mom.
One thing that Brian's quasi-married life has not diminished is the friendly yet intense competition between us. But in any argument or disagreement with me (or any of our friends for that matter), Brian has a distinct advantage. Some prodigies excel in chess or in their ability to recall the great texts of English literature. But Brian's power is far stronger -- he knows all of our GPAs and test scores going back to seventh grade. Lame as it might sound, it's pretty difficult to argue about the check with someone who knows which calculus exam you botched when you were 15 years old.
Thankfully, Brian has long since left investment banking to work for a company I've never heard of doing a job I only vaguely understand. He does seem a lot happier, though, so that's good. But I can't help wonder if this was destined to happen. After all, Brian majored in something I've never even heard of: biometry. That's right, biometry -- a strange mix of math and biology that I guess Cornell invented for confused high school kids who couldn't make up their minds. Have you ever met a biometrist? I didn't think so. So maybe this new job is perfect for him after all.
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And, finally, this is the true story of how my VCR broke, and as a result, I had to buy Brian a new DVD player. Here goes: The VCR in my room broke, and to replace it, my parents gave me an extra DVD player they had in their house. So far, so good. But Brian objected to this because, although his VCR was working fine, his DVD player was in the common room for us both to use. Thinking this arrangement was no longer equitable, he insisted I put my DVD player in the common room instead. I objected since then I would have nothing in my room at all, while he would have both a DVD player and a VCR in his. The only way to solve the impasse was for us to split a third DVD player and put that in Brian's room. When I asked Brian how he'd managed to convince me to buy him a new DVD player just because my VCR broke, he said, "It was easy. I knew you took a class in negotiations freshman year and only got a B minus."
Aaron Karo, 25, is a New York City-based comedian and author of the book "Ruminations on College Life." RUMINATIONS, a column about twentysomething life, runs every other week. For more on Karo, check out www.AaronKaro.com.
