It's a strange but true science that the chips of a loved one will taste 75% percent better than your own and that sometimes and that your hair will feel 75% percent silkier when you've just washed it with their Kerastase shampoo. But how can you enjoy all this beautiful maths and get away with it? Answer: you can't, but here's how you can give it a bloody good go.
Monetary value
When it comes to borrowing shit, most people aren’t tightwads, they just simply cannot imagine anything more arduous than going to the corner shop. They would happily give you two hundred times the mercenary value of your ice cream not to have to put their socks back on. But if you are the thief, don’t pretend you don’t already know this. You cannot mitigate fury one feels finding the last of their Marmite on your toast by ferreting around in your coin purse. A friend of mine shares a flat with a chick from Gumtree and her enormous hippy boyfriend. Not only does he make their flat smell like old rope, but behind closed doors he likes to use her Kerastase shampoo as an all-over wash for his long, milky body. When he’s squeezed the last few drops of all of her toiletries and eaten contents of her cupboards, he pops a pound coin in their place. He probably thinks this is really jaunty and cute. She does not think this is cute.
Sass
If you’re planning on making a long-term career out of the five finger discount then it’s wise to just sort of weave it into your personality. Because if there’s one thing people under the age of 30 hate seeming, it’s uptight. Cultivate this anxiety into a weapon in your personality armoury. When I first moved to London I lived with a girl I would regularly return home to find sat at the kitchen table wearing my underwear distractedly eating my melba toasts. No topping or anything, just shoving those toasts in like they didn’t even fucking matter. Every night I find her in the same spot wrapping her unemployed lips around the contents of the larder, quietly soiling my pants while I scrabbled around in the cupboards. She seemed quite ‘trendy’ and I thought this kind of libertine attitude I was to expect from East London, Something about her crumby unapologetic grin that implied I was simply not 'chill' enough to understand. At least that’s what I mumbled to myself when I was buying more melba toasts.
Washing
If you’ve got the whole one-way clothes sharing vibe going on, you’ll know there’s nothing quite as exhilarating as coming home to find your drawers empty and all your wet clothes hanging on the dryer. Your sneaky housemate will pretend she is being helpful but we both know this is guilt laundry. It’s hard to work out which is makes you more ragey: imagining your barely-worn white top festering at the bottom of her washing basket or watching its life fade away as it tumbles around the machine on 90 degrees.
Fridge games
If you’ve decided to be the sort of person who borrows other peoples stuff and this is going to be a regular thing for you then try not to be a complete cunt about it. We've all done odd bit of 'squaring off' her leftover lasagne or leaving two miserable squares of Dairy Milk as a token gesture. But some fridge crimes leave no room for retribution. Scrapings of butter and empty packets back in the fridge are not OK and the sicko that leaves a less-than-tea dribble of milk in their wake is worthy of corporal punishment. But God may only preserve the friendships of the topper upper. My lactose intolerant friend learned this the hard way when she was booking her third day off work for chronic squirts. Her housemate rapped on the bathroom door on his way out to admit he 'couldn't find her special milk' and had been ‘topping it up’ with straight-up cows. Chrz m8.
READ MORE: Seven Blood Boiling Things My Housemate Does In The Bathroom
The crime scene
You can always tell if someone strange has slept in your bed. It's all there: the tangy aroma of Right Guard, jizz and booze; the passionate smear of blusher on your pillow that softly whispers 'Emily and Rob couldn't be arsed to get the nightbussssss.' I mean sure, it's revolting but if you're planning on doing the nasty in your housemate's bed while they are on holiday then there are some basics. This is one of those KEY times in your life for being meticulous (see also: beetroot, drinking red wine in your wedding dress) and not a time for sloppiness. Treat the scene as though you are Sherlock… featuring on a high stakes episode of Room Raiders. Do not do as my disgusting friend Sophie did and leave a neatly knotted condom kicking loose inside her new work friend's duvet cover.
Follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyannhancock
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.