The Experiment

Dianne. My roommate. She's a nice lady, in her quiet way. She's always polite and she feeds me left over Halloween candy and cake (when she makes cake).

But she is strange. The sweatpants, for instance. One night I couldn't help but notice that her sweatpants had a hole in the butt. It was about the size of a fist. I was embarrassed for her, so I told her about it. "Oh, I know," she says, "I should probably get a new pair." That was a month ago. The hole is now large enough to put your head through (I am NOT exaggerating) and it's driving poor Bill up the wall. Every time I see Bill he tells me, "she wore those pants again!" and he complains about having to see her butt. Sure, she has underwear on, and everyone in the house knows what color it is... nonetheless Bill is offended. I like Bill, so the other day when I drove by Kmart I stopped in and found a nice pair of fleece lined sweatpants on sale for $5. I can easily spend $5 to keep Bill from killing Dianne.

I thought Dianne might be embarrassed that I bought her clothing. Instead, she seemed pleasantly surprised and she thanked me. I told her that Bill and I had noticed the hole had gotten quite large and no, that's OK, you don't need to pay me back. That was last week.

Today I caught her in the kitchen wearing her old pants with her underwear hanging out. I couldn't help myself, "Dianne! You're wearing those sweatpants again!"

"I know," she said laughing, "even after you got me those new ones." I told her it was a good thing Bill's not here to get offended (he's at his sister's for Thanksgiving). She laughed. I think maybe she likes offending Bill. It's hard to tell with her.

My latest Dianne experiment is to see if she'll refill the water. With Bill and Victor gone for the weekend it's just Dianne and I in the house. Our house has really old pipes and we're not supposed to drink out of the tap so we have one of those bottled water thingies you see in offices with the 5 gallon jugs on there upside down. I don't think Dianne has ever put a new bottle on it. I usually do. Victor takes out the trash, Bill cleans all the time, I keep up with the water (and clean some of the time) and buy the dishsoap, but as far as I can tell, Dianne does nothing to benefit the house. This also drives Bill up the wall (Victor is pretty laid back).

So my experiment is this: Will Dianne put a new water bottle on the thing? There are several options.

1. Yes, she will.
2. She'll ask me to do it.
3. She will suffer from dehydration.
4. She will drink from the poisonous tap until I put a new bottle on.
5. She will walk to the store and buy water.
6. Bill or Victor will come back and put the new bottle on before Dianne has a chance to suffer any ill effects.

My hypothesis? Dianne will die of dehydration before she will put a new bottle on.

What am I going to drink, you may wonder? I'll be working so much today that my one full water bottle will tide me over.

I'll let you know what happens.