Nyren closed the window today with the announcement that the cold in this room was making him physically sick. I didn’t argue with him; there are far simpler ways of dealing with the situation, but I’ve got a few issues with that statement. And it’s easier to write them here than try to confront him with them, because he immediately went to sleep after doing so.
First is the fact that it is not actually cold in this room. I put the temperature at maybe 70 degrees, 65 at minimum. What with the advent of spring, it became far more difficult than I like to maintain a decently cold temperature in here. He would have made a far more persuasive point sometime in January, when it was actually chilly in here.
Second is the fact that last I checked, modern medicine had conclusively proved that the temperature causes exactly two ailments: hypothermia and frostbite. Actual illness has an entirely different cause: virii and bacteria. I’m not going to say that he hasn’t come down with something, but I treat the claim that the cold caused it as the complete and utter BS that it is.
Third is the fact that leaving the window in here open isn’t just for my comfort. Unfortunately, within half an hour of the window here being closed, this room starts to smell, and badly. That’s something that both of us have to take the blame on; we both have plates that we haven’t washed for at least a week, and the food on them is getting kind of funky. He claims that he has no sense of smell and this doesn’t bother him. But I, and anybody who cares to come in here, do have a sense of smell, and I’d consider it proper to keep the window open to air out the room.
The basic problem here is that he makes a great pretense of selflessness, putting up with my idiosyncrasies with nary a comment. But when it actually does bother him, he does something like this: invent a good reason why it should be otherwise. It’s hard to argue that a sick person shouldn’t be able to have their room as warm as they wish.
But claiming that the cold makes him sick, so that the window stays closed? That strikes me as unlikely to the point of being a lie, and a poor way about getting his way. I would have been so much happier if he had simply said that the cold was bothering him, and he’d like to keep the window closed for a while.
To be fair, he hasn’t even suggested that the window be kept closed all the time; just that we work out a schedule when it should be closed. Even so, the window isn’t the real problem; it’s the indirect methods, the ‘sickness,’ that are bothering me.
I hope to resolve this peacefully; I haven’t had a roommate fight all year and there’s only a little over 3 weeks left before the school year’s over.
But, if only because of the smell, that window is going to stay open.
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