Live In Problems

They say you never really know someone until you move in and stay with them. "They", whoever they are cannot be more right. You know how some couples are so in love with each other and they get married and move in together and then suddenly they drive each other crazy with their habits?

Toilet seat always up, wet towels on the bed, shoes inside the house, ashtray all over the place, whites are not separated from the coloreds, sink is not wiped dry, legs on table, smoking on the sofa, wrong hangers for the wrong clothes and the list goes on and on until someone screams, "You're a pig!"

I am not trying to say that Steve is driving me crazy but rather it has been the exact opposite. Living with him for the past three days have been nothing short of a revelation. Or maybe he is just on his best behaviour to get into my good books. But whatever it is, it's good. And come to think of it, Steve is too honest of a person to even try to lie his way through life, even for a mere three days.

Being Steve's guest instantly made me a mini celebrity in his house. Everything is being fussed to suit my needs, right from head to toe. I wake up to a breakfast spread every single morning without fail for the past three mornings. In my house, breakfast is bread, butter, jam and plain water. Orange juice if you are lucky. And you have my mother pointing out her fingers at me menacingly saying, "I have wiped the tables twice this morning so I don't want to see any breadcrumbs on the table!"

"Then why serve breads in the first place?" I said.

And as of one year ago, I altogether stopped having breakfast for that very same reason. At Steve's house, breakfast is orange juice, hot coffee and tea, bread, peanut butter, croissants (from god knows where), scrambled eggs, jams and marmalades, sausages, ham, cereal (plain and frosted) and a maid standing by the table at your service. That is breakfast...for two.

"Who is going to finish this all up? I can't finish it all, it's too much," I whispered.

"My helpers need to eat breakfast too, no?" Steve said.

"Right," I said, biting into my toast.

The thing that I found out about Steve that as a friend, I find heartwarming is that he sees himself as an equal to others, even his helpers. Especially his helpers if I may add. He washes his own dishes, makes his won bed and even washes his own clothes. He says it is because he doesn't trust anybody with his clothes but I think he just doesn't want to further tire his helpers.

Many a times he would tell his three Indonesian helpers, "It's okay Bibik, I'll do it, you go upstairs and rest." This would be followed by a little scuffle between maid and young master (he hates it when I tease and call him that) to complete the task and he would always win, with hard insistence.

"They are here to help me with the household chores, not take care of me. I can take care of myself," Steve said yesterday over dinner. Steve felt like eating KFC so he ordered for everyone in the house.

The only thing that bothers me about living with Steve is his dangerous obsession with Christina Aguilera. He blasts Ms Aguilera all night long. That is one whole night of shrills and growls and screams and it does not help that my room is supposedly haunted. I mean that is just down right inviting them to come in.

Just now, Melanie and Star came over after work with 5 boxes of pizzas. It is our monthly ritual, movie night at Steve's because a) he has a huge room that he converted into a mini theater, complete with cushions and sofas and beanie bags and an overhead projector and a state of the art sound system and b) because of reason a).

Steve promptly took out a Burlesque DVD and Melanie said, "We've watched that before remember? And if you want to see Cher in tights, I can do it for you, same thing."

Steve said that he would treat all of us dinner the next day and suddenly Burlesque was playing on the screen. I know, I have cheap friends.

"Noooo," I cried helplessly. The past three days have been hours and hours of Christina Aguilera screaming her poor little lungs out in the house and I wasn't prepared to have her (bless her soul) violate my eardrums on our monthly movie night.

"She's so goo," Steve said staring at the screen, fanboy mode on. Ms Aguilera was in this black bra and fishnet stockings and gyrating and screaming away as usual.

"Whoever whose loved ones are in a comatose right now should pay Christina to sing beside them. They will wake up even before she starts the chorus. Trust me, it'll work," I rolled my eyes and lied down on the beanie bag, intending to snooze than watching Burlesque.