He Can't Walk Straight

This flaw is a more subtle aspect of Jacob's failed existence. While he does not exhibit a limp or a hitch of any kind in his walk, he is unable to maintain walking in a straight line. Short distances are fine--he gets across the kitchen and living room without losing his way--but over longer distances the problem becomes severe.

Let me further clarify before I begin illustrating with examples. His path is not that of a drunkard; it is not a random walk with him alternating directions. This tendency to meander is also unprovoked and not the product of an inhibiting substance. Rather is is just Jacob being Jacob.

On multiple occasions I've been walking with Jacob to or from class discussing various things, like the proper way to make a cake. However, while we're walking he unconsciously starts walking in a slight angle. If the direction is away from me I simply follow his lead in hopes that his meandering will lead him into an obstruction of some sort (so far he's hit one stop sign, three other students, and a tree). If he drifts diagonally towards me though, then problems arise.

The awkward act of him bumping into me is not that jarring or injurious, but rather it's as if he's a kitten seeking attention or affection and therefore deciding to rub up against my leg. The problem however is that a.) my legs are moving b.) I am completely uninterested in petting or feeding him and c.) there's a 17% chance he'll try and cop a feel. When you catch a pet misbehaving you're supposed to grab it by the scruff of its neck and tell it "NO!" in an authoritative voice. I've opted to not perform such an action because although it would be sufficiently demeaning to Jacob, it would only act to draw further attention to an already awkward moment.

Instead what I've chosen to do is slap him upside the head (similar to but not the same as a pimp slap), which has deterred, but not eliminated such behavior. Thus I've now begun carrying a can of axe body spray that I use as a tamer form of mace to ensure that Jacob walks at least an arms length away from me. Such a deterrent leaves his face only moderately irritated and even leaves him smelling sexy...well...sexy only to the few dozen hookers and hordes of frat guys who actually think axe smells sexy.

Dish Update:
The threat of axe punishment has now been utilized to ensure Jacob puts his plates in the dish washer as I successfully caught him red-handed today. That silly tramp.

He Can't Swallow Pills

It is really quite amusing and even a little sad, yet it still infuriates me that Jacob can't swallow pills. In our adolescent years we all at some point graduate from the teaspoons of dimetapp and robitussin and began using real medicine. Some of us switched gradually to chewables (those flintstones vitamins were delicious and addicting) or dissolveables but eventually swallowing pills became natural. Jacob, however, appears to be an exception.

Like a gazelle that never learned to run, a monkey that never learned to climb or a hooker who never learned to give a hand job, Jacob apparently failed to acquire a basic skill that would greatly enhance his ability to prolong his life span. Vitamins can no longer be taken to supplant his peculiar diet, medicine can't be utilized to ward off his numerous illnesses, and cocks can't be sucked to provide him with the necessary funds to bankroll his heroine addiction (I'll discuss his drug problems further in another post).

Instead of swallowing pills with ease, he will place it in his mouth, drink some water and proceed to gawk about like a mother bird regurgitating her food for her chicks. However, Jeremiah and I are not his chocks, we do not require him to provide us with food, and we certainly don't want him spitting up moist pills all over the kitchen table. This inability to swallows pills, vitamins, or penises is keeping Jacob undernourished, unhealthy, and poor respectively. I can only hope that he can find a way to adapt so that I don't have to hear him complain anymore.

Eating slowly update:
1/3 of Fried Fish Sandwich - 13 minutes

Dishes in sink update:
Earlier today Jacob smartly used a plate from the dishwasher that was dirty to capture the grease dripping from his George Foreman grill rather than using a clean one. However, upon finishing his meal I found that he had put two plates in the sink, including the one originally in the dishwasher! Not only is he continuing to put dishes in the sink, but now he is actively removing them from the dishwasher and putting them back in the sink. That mother***er!

He Doesn't Eat Bacon

Another thing that bothers me about Jacob is the fact that he won't eat bacon. I think I can speak for most of us when I say that bacon is man's finest concoction, his one entry in the annals of intergalactic cuisine. Unlike other meats, it has a perfect crisp texture. When you bite into it, it responds with a satisfying crunch. Yet as you hold it in your mouth, it is tender and juicy.

That's what she said.

Jacob, however, claims that it is against his religion to eat bacon. He says that Jews are supposed to keep "kosher." Well, I once asked all my other Jewish friends if they had ever heard of kosher and they said they were allowed to eat whatever they want. When I returned to question Jacob, he insisted that it was all in the Torah. He then brought out a worn old book and pointed out the passage which forbid the consumption of bacon. I just nodded my head. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was actually reading Green Eggs and Ham. It's not nice to question the illiterate.

Still, I stayed up late for many nights wondering why he persisted in this facade. I knew it wasn't beyond Jacob to totally make something up and pretend it was part of his religion. After all, he also claims that his habit of pooping on the kitchen floor is part of his religion. That's also a lie, but at least I understand where he's coming from. Sometimes you just don't want to walk all the way to the toilet. But what does he care for pigs? Then it hit me. Look at the picture of Jacob below and you will see what I mean.


Jacob preparing for his Tuesday afternoon show at the strip club.

Suddenly it all made sense. He feels a kinship towards pigs because they are the only animals as ugly and dirty as he is. Thus he refuses to eat bacon. I know he wants to have some. Whenever I cook bacon, he starts panting and rolling around on the ground from the smell. Yet he persists in claiming that eating it would violate the codes of Judaism. I could almost admire him for his sacrifice if I didn't think that his refusal to eat bacon had seriously warped his personality. Alas, it has.

He Eats Ridiculously Slowly

I returned from tennis today to find Jacob sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal and two pieces of toast. I had only a brief bit of time before I needed to get to class so I poured myself some cheerios and milk and quickly began consuming. As I enjoyed my brief breakfast/lunch he merely sat there staring off into space. In the fifteen minutes it had taken me to change, get cereal, get milk, finish my food and drink, wash off my bowl and cup, and put them in the dishwasher he had finished just one piece of toast!

How does he do this?! Rather than behaving like the food chain king that humans are he instead acts like a kitten who is not fully enthralled with the flavor of catnip being offered on today's menu. The kitten nibbles slowly but wanders away mid-meal on multiple occasions, as apparently the food was incapable of capturing his attention for a duration longer than several minutes. Instead, shinier objects like his computer or Jeremiah's eyes seem to draw him away from his digestive process further exacerbating his already precipitously slow chewing rate.

I've included a brief chart to illustrate the torpidity of his eating habits. Normally, such a problem would not be overly troublesome but the degree of his slowness inhibits our suite's and friends' ability to eat out without dedicating substantial time to allow Jacob to fully digest his meal. I was so distraught sophomore year that I nearly burst into tears when his three hours spent nibbling his pasta dish at the Cheese Cake Factory caused us to miss the last showing of Stomp the Yard.

The only benefit of his soporific eating style is that it allows me to occasionally move his food whilst he consumes it. As his attention meanders, I jump in and relocate a utensil, a cup, a plate, or even the entire toaster. I've hidden several items in the cupboard, the freezer and my anus as part of an ongoing effort to break him of such tendencies. But alas; such attempts have failed to alter his habits and I am left bewildered as to how he lives in such a manner.

He Always Leaves Things in the Sink

Whenever I look in the cabinet for a clean plate and don't see any, my heart sinks to the floor. Jacob has struck again. Inevitably there is a stack of plates in the sink, covered in grease. I don't know if he doesn't put things in the dishwasher because he doesn't know how it works or because he's just a dick. I'm guessing the former. He's always telling me how he doesn't "learn too good."

Now, if it were bacon grease, it wouldn't be so bad. Then I could at least lick it off my fingers as I moved the plates out of the sink. But he doesn't even eat bacon, because he has to keep "kosher." Now I still think he made this kosher crap up, but that's a subject for another post.

What I really hate is that he puts dishes in the sink and then cleans off more dishes on top of the dishes that are already there. This means that all kinds of foul-smelling shit starts to pool up and congeal all over anything left in the sink. And of course, somehow I am the one who always has to run the dishwasher. I've tried waiting him out, but it didn't work. I even hid all of his food so all he would have left was milk and mashed potatoes, stuff you need cups and silverware for at the least. Well what do you know, he dumped the potatoes on a paper towel, poured milk all over it, and stuffed the whole entree, paper towel and all, into his fat little mouth. After that disgusting display, I gave in and did the dishes. What can I say, at least I'm civilized.

He's Always Sick

Why the **** is Jacob always sick? Four times in the past three months. Over six instances last school year. He's welcome to sniffle, cough, and whine incessantly but so long as stays in his room. But no! Bathroom access becomes limited due to his repeated usage of the toilet during these periods, I'm forced to drive him to Walgreens to get medicine, and he contaminates everything in the suite. Why does he find it absolutely necessary to use the refrigerator, the microwave, hell even the shower?!

The ubiquitous germs floating throughout the suite don't take long to have their effect. It's guaranteed that within a week of him getting sick that everyone in our suite is suffering from the same cold. His presence in our suite is like constantly leaving the window open in December; he's a vestibule for diseases. A horde of plague invested rats would spread less disease because at the very least I could lock them in his empty room (and as an added bonus I could try my experiment of slowly killing them by filling the air vent with axe body spray and not get charged with the murder of a fellow classmate).

There are dozens of probable explanations for his frail immune system but frankly I don't care what they actually are. I'm just going to be thrilled that in four months I'll be rid of his collage of illnesses and will no longer have to pop Zicam on a weekly basis in fear of catching his latest virus.