Instead of replying with something devastatingly witty (since apparently I think I’m still capable of such things), I gape at him, opening and closing my mouth, showing him my best impression of a trout dying on dry land.

He says nothing more, just grabs a shirt and a pair of cargo shorts out of his bag before turning and walking out of the room.

But not before I see the small smile on his face that makes every single resolution I’ve ever made about Dominic Miller go flying right out the window. It’s good to know my convictions go by way of the wind over such a little thing. Either that, or at some point in the past four years, Dom was initiated as a voodoo high priest and I’ve just been cursed with some hoodoo.

Either way, I am so completely and utterly fucked.

20. Where Tyson Beholds the Awesome Wonder That Is Paul Auster

EVER HAD to sleep next to someone while making a conscious effort not to touch them accidentally at any point during the night? Especially when said bedmate apparently considers normal sleepwear to be some raggedy workout shorts and nothing else?

No?

Well, it blows. Like a lot. And by “sleep,” I really mean stare at the ceiling and wonder just how my life has gotten to this point, trying to go back day by day through my entire life to find out which of my actions are deserving of the karmic ass-kicking I’m currently receiving. Let’s see. Beach hippies. Drug use. Not living up to my full potential. Almost accidentally burning down the house one year to destroy the turkey so we could have a vegetarian Thanksgiving. Being completely and totally awesome. Geez. Take your pick. It literally could be any one of those things and many, many more. It’s hard to live a morally good life when you have a propensity for shenanigans.

It doesn’t help that the big oaf snoring loudly next to me (I knew it!) apparently has the propensity to splay out across the entire bed like he’s the only one in it. I watched as he got closer and closer and closer (never mind the fact that I was watching him while he slept—I tried not to think about how creepy that made me), and all the while, the space I had available to me became smaller and smaller. Eventually, I ended up in a tiny corner at the top of the bed, my butt against the headboard, wrapping myself around the pillow and glaring at Dominic, who I was by then convinced was doing this on purpose and had joined the ranks of villainy to conspire against me.

I last until about five thirty, when I jerk myself out of yet another doze where I’d fallen into a surreal dream where Dominic had awoken to find me draped across the top of him. That itself was okay (well, as okay as something like that can be), but then I opened my mouth to give some sort of explanation, and a bucket of fried chicken legs fell out of my mouth onto Dom’s face. I tried to apologize, but then Dom started eating the chicken and that really grossed me out and I tried to run away only to fall into a pit filled with hippies in a drum circle, all smoking doobies and trying to put hemp necklaces around me. I don’t even want to try and begin to analyze that. I don’t want to know what that says about my fragile psyche. Something chickeny, to be sure.