In which I rent a room in a group house in Washington DC with the three post-college guys who lived like post-college guys

I had to move out of the room I was renting from Crazy Carmen in D.C. I had gone to Washington D.C. after I got out of the Peace Corps in the hopes of finding a job in international development. What I discovered was that someone with my background - master's degree, one foreign language, international work experience, Fortune 50 company experience - could find employment as a secretary. A temp secretary.

The key to a good job was connections, of which I had none. Connections could be developed if one was willing to stick around town long enough, working for almost no money. The people who did this were subsidized by their parents, I suspect. Those of us who had to pay for our own health insurance, car insurance, rent and food on $11/hour from the temp agency had a harder time making ends meet.

I first rented a room from Carmen, a Peruvian woman who was a full-time secretary with benefits at the World Bank. Not a bad gig. The secretary thing, I mean. I temped at the World Bank for secretaries who were on vacation. I don't know if my workload in their absence was anything like what they did, but I had about six spare hours a day after I distributed the mail, printed the boss's emails for him and sent a few faxes. One of the secretaries for whom I subbed passed her spare time looking at internet porn, if her internet bookmarks were any indication.

Note to people who take vacation and are replaced by temps: Delete your porn bookmarks.

Note to temps: On your first day, when the head secretary is showing you around and tells you "there's the bathroom" and "there's the break room" and "here's where the mail goes," realize that the first two statements are for your information but that the last one is so you know where to put the mail when it arrives because for the first time in your life, you are a mail sorter and deliverer, which can be a humbling experience after you have had significantly more responsibility than making sure Mr Smith's mail doesn't go into Ms Carr's box but hey, it pays the bills (sort of) and you are not in a position to be choosy.

I was one of two tenants renting an upstairs bedroom and sharing the upstairs bath. Carmen was reluctant to let me use the kitchen, but acquiesced when I promised I would just make oatmeal in the morning and maybe make a sandwich in the evening. For my $400 a month, she also reluctantly agreed to let me use the washer and the dryer. I was not, however, supposed to sit in the living room. Or have overnight guests, male or female. For $400 a month. For one room. In 1995.

I was not a housemate, as I presumed. I was a renter of one room. One. Other than that, I was to stay out of her sight.

I moved out after she accused me of ruining her ceiling. The plaster on the ceiling underneath the upstairs bathroom fell off because the bathroom floor leaked. The other tenant would bathe and leave the shower door open. The water dripped off the shower door and onto the floor, where it leaked through.

When I noticed this problem, I bought a squeegee and used it on the door every time I showered. I suggested that the other tenant do the same and told Carmen about the problem, suggesting she might want to have the grout re-done.

They both ignored me and after a month, the plaster started to fall.

According to Carmen, this was my fault. That the floor was destroyed because of my one month of showering and squeegeeing and not because of the other tenant's year of not squeegeeing.

And I didn't just move out; she evicted me.

Maybe I am the "X" here. Two destroyed bathrooms and I am the common factor.

On to the group house in Arlington. A DC tradition: a bunch of people who don't know each other sharing a house.

I shared the house with three men in their 20s. Two lived downstairs and had their own bathroom; two of us were upstairs and shared the other bathroom. Knowing that I would be cleaning the bathroom anyhow, I negotiated a deal with my floormate that he would let me use his phone (I did not want to install my own phone - remember, this was in the days before cellphones) in exchange for my cleaning the bathroom.

But I had no such power over the kitchen.

Three guys in the mid-20s vs me.

They won.

Honestly, how could I expect someone to move the pizza box two feet from the counter to the trash? And to use the drain trap when rinsing dishes? If you do that, gunk gets caught in it. That's gross. Easier to let the food wash down the drain and clog the sink.

I finally got tired of the whole thing and moved away. I wasn't patient enough to wait months or years to meet the right person to get a decent job. I had done my charity work; now I wanted to make real money. And I was tired of sleeping on the floor on my blowup mattress and sharing a bathroom with strangers.