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03/30/2006: "Decent Men Damned to Battle"

Wounds are healing, lives are mending. What had started as a simple disagreement among roommates became a seething, acrimonious rigmarole that would have sent the Hatfields and McCoys scurrying pale and frightened to the nearest hidey-hole.

It had begun simply enough, with what I thought was a private moment between myself and my iTunes:


Acting on a tip from Chestnut, Tumble had emerged in his bedclothes to film me unawares. Little did Tumble know Chestnut was lying in wait with a 5.0 megapixel camera to capture his penchant for long underwear.


This was in retaliation for the previous Thursday, when Chestnut had walked in on Tumble and I rehearsing a play we’d written. It was based on a diary we’d found in Chestnut’s room from when Chestnut was 14 and battling a bedwetting problem. The play was entitled A Spot On My Bedsheets That God Forgot.


I was unaware of Chestnut’s implication in my embarrassment and set out to retaliate against Tumble.

I lay in wait in his clothes hamper to scare the living Jesus out of him, but after a couple hours I fell asleep and ended up smelling like socks.

Tumble meanwhile had gotten even with Chestnut courtesy a half-gallon of buttermilk and Chestnut’s briefcase.


This led Chestnut and I to join forces and take things to the next level:


War had opened its violent maw upon all that was once considered good.
Chestnut mailed Tumble’s favorite cowboy shirts to British Columbia.


Tumble stuck Chestnut’s Dr. Who tapes in the microwave.


Chestnut hid Tumble’s car keys in Tumble’s Trunk.


Tumble sent Chestnut on three consecutive prank blind dates.



By the third blind date, Tumble had seen firsthand the horrors of warfare and his thirst for blood waned.


Until Chestnut hid Tumble's glasses right before Wheel Of Fortune.


Then Tumble cut the nipples out of all of Chestnut’s dress shirts.


Under the guise of a reconciliation, Chestnut invited Tumble out for coffee. Tumble soon realized that Chestnut had signed him up for the freestyle poetry slam going on.


Tumble won third place for his piece entitled “I’m not supposed to be here."


Exhausted from battle and the catharsis of poetry, Tumble and Chestnut declared a truce, written on looseleaf and notarized by yours truly (while not a real notary and therefore lacking access to a notary seal, I did leave a solid bitemark on the upper left corner, which I initialized). It is anyone's guess as to how long the peace will last. Let's hope for everyone's sake I get them first.