With apologies to “Friends’

MODERN DAD | By Jon Show

Feb. 9. My kids are the worst roommates I’ve ever had, which is saying something because I once lived with a guy who would stash chicken wing bones behind the couch.

I also lived with a guy who took down my closet door to play beer pong and then hung it back up without cleaning it off.

Need one more example to set the stage?

I lived with a guy who was charged with a crime that required me to go down to the police station to make a statement. I should point out the charge was not malicious and the crime was not perpetrated against me.

Listen, I love my kids. I’m not saying I don’t love my kids. And yes, I understand that I’m raising children and technically they aren’t my roommates.

However …

If they were my roommates and not my children—whom I dearly love I’d have them looking for a new place to live.

I could go on for pages on this topic but here are my main list of grievances.

Stealing my towels

My kids are old enough that I’ve been told I shouldn’t walk around the house naked anymore. Which is fine. However, when I reach outside the shower door to grab one of the crisp, white towels that I stole from the Hampton Inn, it’s not on the hook.

As such, I have no choice but to exit the bathroom in the buff to retrieve one, and thus be ridiculed and body shamed by whichever kid is standing in the hallway. And one is always standing in the hallway.

The crazy thing, to me, is that they have to walk by the linen closet to get to our shower but they don’t grab their own towels. Also, they have their own shower.

I should note they can’t currently use their shower because one of them dropped a sharp object that punctured a pin hole in the tub, which I discovered when I was leaving to go fishing early one morning, tripped on one of their shoes in the garage, looked up at the ceiling and took a water droplet to the face.

Eating the food

I do all the cooking, so I sit down on Sundays and make a dinner menu and then I go buy the exact amount of the exact items I need to make those dinners.

My kids open the fridge and don’t see ingredients for dinner, they see snacks. Even things that clearly aren’t snacks, like one giant carrot.

Why don’t we buy snacks for the house? We do. Except they no longer like the ones they liked last week so we just have a pantry filled with boxes of regret.

That doesn’t seem so bad, you say? Hold my beer.

My daughter on more than one occasion has taken a bite out of a stick of butter and put it back in the fridge. Read that sentence again. I feel like I could get her committed to a mental hospital on that act alone.

My garage

I don’t care about the state of their rooms. I just don’t. If they want to live in a pile of filth I honestly don’t care except that I get tired of listening to the Mother of Dragons say “it looks like a bomb went off in here” at least four times a week.

The garage, on the other hand, is a problem that I can’t escape.

There’s a pile of athletic equipment around my car at all times and at least four pairs of mismatched, sweat-crusted socks. When I ask Future Man to pick up his pile he finds creative ways to hang things on the wall or stuff them into buckets without ever actually cleaning anything up.

Both bikes are tossed to the ground as if someone yelled “dinnertime” and they came rushing in the house at the speed you would hope they would travel when you actually call them to dinner.

Then there’s my tool bench. There was a time when I had screwdrivers and T-squares and wrenches and pliers and saws and measuring tapes and all sorts of things.

Now I’m down to just one pair of pliers, a crescent wrench, a dull saw and a hammer. I would be remiss to point out that I only have the hammer because I found it in a bush in the backyard last spring when I was doing mulch.

Stealing my clothes

I don’t really have enough clothes because I hate shopping for clothes. Therefore, I need all my socks. I need all my underwear. I have so few T-shirts that I can only go a week without doing laundry.

So you’ll understand, then, that I find it very inconvenient that Future Man goes to my closet when he needs clothes because all of his are in a dirty pile in his room.

He hops in the car on the way to practice in my T-shirts. I pick him up at his friend’s house after he goes golfing and he’s in the driveway in my golf shirt and pants.

If I need socks at this point I go get mine out of his sock bin. I don’t even look in my own drawer.

Last month I went looking for my one pair of dry fit boxers that I wear for fishing but couldn’t locate them, so I asked him if he knew where they were. He told me he had worn them and had to throw them away because he ate a lot of ice cream and ice cream makes his tummy ache and … oops … so he threw them away.

Ever had a roommate borrow, soil and discard a pair of your underwear? Well I have.

Listen, I’m not saying I’m the greatest roommate either. Who wants to live with a guy who’s constantly complaining about your shower habits, digging in your closet for socks or making you pick up your stuff in the garage.

Who wants to live with someone who gets mad when you’re starving and you decide to eat the heirloom tomato for a snack? I mean, what’s up with that, right? It’s healthy!

Just know, children, that if it was socially and legally allowed I would send you to live with the chicken wing guy and closet door guy for a few weeks to see what it’s like to live with undesirable roommates.

That reminds me, I should probably check on the police statement guy. I haven’t heard from him in 15 to 20.

Jon Show lives in Robbins Park with his wife, who he calls “The Mother of Dragons.” Their 15-year-old son is “Future Man” and their 11-year-old daughter is “The Blonde Bomber.” Their dog is actually named Lightning.