The case of the Phantom Roommate

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Greetings,
my apologies for such long lapses in postings. This has been a busy week where much was done and seen. My courses have accelerated to warp speed over the past week. In my cinematography class we spent almost 3 back to back days shooting 4 different 16mm projects. In my independent producing class we had to present our "pitch" (the concept for our movie) to a special guest speaker who works in Hollywood as a screenwriter/director and has built up a reputation as a pitch expert. He gave us tips and tricks on how to improve so that we're the best we can be when it comes time for the final pitch showdown with a Universal executive.
That in a nutshell is what has been happening school wise, but I'd like to tell you about a perculiar development that has been happening in the apartment where I live. I've decided to call this, "The Case of the Phantom Roommate." You see in the documents pertaining to the rental of our apartment it clearly states that we should have 4 room mates. Myself, Jay from Montreal, and Fernando from Brazil and ...one other. But this mysterious 4th roommate has yet to show himself. Now if this rental document was the only irregularity I wouldn't give it a second glance, probably just a typo or a last minute switch that someone forgot to tell us about...but there's a littler more to it than that. Let me first explain how the living conditions work in this apartment, there are two bedrooms, containg two seperate beds for a maximum of 2 occupants to a room and 4 occupants to an apartment. Fernando and I share a room, and Jay has one to himself....sort of. The first day I arrived I took a look around and noticed that someone had already moved on one side of one of the rooms. There were sheets on the bed, clothes were stacked on the desk, a new conforter was still in its package, there were shoes in the closet. Naturally I assumed that someone was already here so I took a bed in the other room. That night when I came home from class I met Jay and Fernando. After a round of introductions we realized that we were still a man short, it was soon discovered that neither Jay nor Fernando were the owners of the personal items I had seen when I first arrived. Jay had moved into the same room but he had taken the other bed. No one else arrived that night or the day after that, or the day after that. We had a mystery on our hands. What was most strange about the whole situation was that all of the items belonging to the phantom roommate appeared to be brand new, this was not some former tenant who had yet to return to pick up the last of his junk, for all appearences this was someone who had moved in the same day as the rest of us, maybe just a few hours before I arrived with the intent on living here for the summer just as we were. Well a week past, and then two and then something strange happened. I came home one night and Jay told me excitedly that the phantom roommate had returned while we were all out of the house. To prove this he showed me the evidence in his room. Sure enough on the Phantom's side of the room there were now two more piles of clothes, a few books that had not been there before and curiously an unopened stack of paper plates and a fresh squeeze bottle of Heinz Ketchup sitting on the desk. Well this was enough to get our speculation motors running at top speed, we conducted a more thurough examination of the phantom's belongings to see if we could extract anything about his identity. A pair of size 13 army boots and a collection of extra large t-shirts was indicitave of a rather large fellow. A stuffed teddy bear on the desk pointed towards a pleasent if somewhat mismatched personality. Clearly what we had here was a ketchup guzzeling collasus with a soft side. The kind-hearted monster from the movie "The Goonies" immediatly sprang to mind but when I told Jay this he didn't seem to think it was very funny, probably because this person had their own key and could concievably barge in on Jay at the middle of the night without the slightest warning.

Now I've learned anything from watching old reruns of Scooby Doo its that in when you have a situation like this the best thing to do is to sit back and wait for the mysterious party to reveal themselves. If one of us gets kidnapped or falls down a trap door and winds up in a dungeon along the way then so be it. Usualy it turns out to be the crusty old landlord who just wanted to scare the kids or the crotchety neighbor from next door who thought they could scam some kind of insurance settlement. I for one have never believed in Phantom roommates and will continue not to.


stay tuned next week when I will present the "Tale of the Walter Walkers." A hilarious anecdote about a couple of street hustlers I met the other day.

Oh and by the way be sure to check out the galleries section to see some new photos I've posted.

- Evan

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