Dear Miss Muffin Top,
I really like this guy I'm seeing, but his room is disgusting! It smells terrible (urine and assorted pets) and I can't sleep there. I have a double, so I totally can't propose a location change, but what else can I do? Can I ask him to make it better without seeming pushy?
-PrincessandthePee
Dear Princess, On the scale of unforgivable dorm/fraternity/sanitary sins, it sounds like your bachelor has barely even made it to the danger zone. While his domicile may be an undesirable alternative to your 1200 thread count tricked-out abode, Miss Muffin Top can assure you that a faint odor barely qualifies as reason to call in Extreme Room Makeover. Miss Muffin Top has traveled far and wide in horrifying dorm rooms and she has seen places ranging from the disgusting (minefield of vitamin waters all a quarter of the way full with dip), deadly (puncture wound inducing deer heads), to downright unsettling (rabbit in bed) and beyond, which would make even that guy from Dirty Jobs (sexy!) reach for a hazmat suit and call his mother. However, armed with a sense of humor and more importantly, several strong cocktails, Miss Muffin Top has found the idiosyncrasies of male living behavior to be occasionally charming (yo, feel these sheets, its like, a t-shirt, get it?). Further, to tamper with his habits, sanitary or otherwise (even if those habits involve sending a trunk-load of laundry home to his mother every break) is to breach ground that will inevitably send you careening into the category of "high maintenance." In Econ 1, between dreaming of the impending Freshman Formal and scoping out the soon-to-be bailout recipients, Miss Muffin Top learned of a thing called "marginal benefit." Miss Muffin Top has no use for the term when applied appropriately, because it usually implies saying no to the 11th girl scout cookie/Martini/hour of sleep. However, in the context of reforming male habits, it is infinitely useful. High maintenance girls are really no different from ordinary girls except that they lack an appropriate sense of marginal benefit. So before you start wheeling in love ferns and terrycloth toilet seat covers, figure out what it is that really bothers you and whether or not it's worth trying to fix. If the problem can be easily solved with a heavy hand of Lysol while he's attending to your line on table, then by all means, spray away! If, however, your grand vision cannot be realized without the aid of professionals, then Miss Muffin Top suggests you either find a way to roll with it, or simply roll out.
Cheers! Miss Muffin Top
Dear Miss Muffin Top,
I think my roommate is trying to force me out of our room. His girlfriend is coming from out of town and planning on staying in our one room double for the next three weeks. I have practice and finals and I refuse to be sexiled. How can I express that this is not an option?
-RefusetoLose
Dear Poppet,
Oh, Miss Muffin Top understands your plight. The only thing worse than living in a one room double is living in a one room double with your roommate and his/her significant other, trying to sleep with your iPod blaring cello suites while you are unwillingly subjected to lovers' whispered sweet nothings and between the sheets rustling. Let the Muffin take a moment to say to all of you offenders: cease and desist! La Muffin doesn't care how tame you are: if you are hiding it under a blanket, you shouldn't be doing whatever "it" is in the company of non-consenting others, let alone your nice, tolerant living companions.
Not all roommates show that much courtesy though. Miss Muffin Top wishes she could be sympathetic to this most unfortunate plight of college-age romance: no place to go. But she just is not. Her advice to you, poppet? Stand your ground. It is your room too.
In Miss Muffin Top's hometown, a lovely, embarrassing Ivy-Gated hamlet much like our own beloved Hanover, there is a coffee shop that sells T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK." The way Muffin sees it, there are two ways to approach your problem. One is to become a metaphorical wearer of this T-shirt. Make yourself a nice nest in the '02 and really wretch out. On the off chance your roommate emerges from his newly-made love den, he might take pity on you and rent a room in the Hanover Inn or somewhere for his slam-dime.
Your other alternative is simply to stay in your room all the time, sleeping (and not wearing that T-shirt). You are sleep, sleep is you and you are in a standoff. For the sake of all of the sexiled souls of this College, Muffin hopes you outlast the enemy and claim a victory for considerate, well-mannered roommates everywhere.
Sweet Dreams,
Miss Muffin Top
