gement | We had a room, but J ated it.

We were looking for a new housemate, because The Magic Housemate of two years bought his own place and thus will no longer be spontaneously maintaining ours, randomly making enough food to share, offering rides, doing twice his own weight in dishes, or mowing the lawn too often. (Sigh.)

Then J's room flooded. Again. Fifth time in eight years. Immediate action from the landlord, fixed in 48 hours, just like the previous times.

We're writing to the landlord to get the rent changed in light of this being a *three* bedroom house with an untrustworthy storage room, pending three years with no water getting into the room. It's never gone longer than 24 months continuously while we've lived here.

But J has always hated having a basement room. He just couldn't bring himself to justify making everyone else pay higher rent to take one of the nice rooms and leave the crappy basement room unrentable.

J gets to have nice things. We have decided. We are taking him to Ikea, where he will buy the first $1000 of furniture he has ever bought for himself in his life. It feels weird to support this kind of rampant consumerism, but he has several decades of only furniture found on the street or gifted (not so much as buying a bookshelf second hand), and I think at this point it balances out. J gets to have nice things.

And I get to vicariously shop at Ikea, because I have plenty of Things already, thanks, but Swedish Modern is so shiny.