Work out a verbal agreement, or get another fridge

By: Miss Lonelyhearts Posted: 12:00 PM CDT Sunday, May. 1, 2016

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I am so mad! I'm a university student. I do a lot of buying groceries and cooking, and my roommate does a lot of stuffing her fat face eating. I cook a new recipe almost every day for dinner, which is enough for a few meals. I eat one portion, and then find the whole dinner and half the veggies gone in the morning. Sometimes my roommate (who is also my stupid cousin) even gives my food to friends she brings home. I've taken to hiding my desserts if they don't spoil or freezing them. Sometimes my cousin has so much nerve she thaws the desserts out again, or eats them frozen.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/05/2016 (3787 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I am so mad! I’m a university student. I do a lot of buying groceries and cooking, and my roommate does a lot of stuffing her fat face eating. I cook a new recipe almost every day for dinner, which is enough for a few meals. I eat one portion, and then find the whole dinner and half the veggies gone in the morning. Sometimes my roommate (who is also my stupid cousin) even gives my food to friends she brings home. I’ve taken to hiding my desserts if they don’t spoil or freezing them. Sometimes my cousin has so much nerve she thaws the desserts out again, or eats them frozen.

When I finally approached her about this, she said, “I let you use my car for free and you don’t put in any gas.” But that’s like twice a week. I complained to my mom who complained to her younger sister who told my cousin, and now she’s barely talking to me and takes all her sets of car keys with her in her purse. Help please!

— Selfish Roommate Problem, Fort Richmond

Dear Selfish Roommate Problem: It sounds like you never talked this out before, expected her to be respectful and you would cook for each other. That’s not how it works. You need to work out an agreement. Your first offer: tell her you will be happy to shop and cook for both of you if she pays for all of the groceries. She’ll scoff at that. Your second offer: you’ll both shop for your own groceries and cook for yourselves, with an invisible line down the middle of the fridge. That’s unfriendly and won’t last long, but then a compromise is in sight.

As for using her car, offer to put in the gas you use and a little more for wear and tear and you always ask for her keys before you borrow it. If she continues to eat up all the food put a bar fridge in your bedroom and a lock on your door. Then don’t expect to see her car keys ever again!

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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