When Faith had made the reluctant decision to move in, she was already well-aware that there was a certain risk to living with a slob. That it could create all kinds of unpleasantness. But never in her wildest nightmares could she have imagined the unexpected hazards of Lydia’s uncleanliness. But, like most things, what drew her in—sucked her toward the black hole—was one simple thing: the price was right. And, more to the point, Faith’s budget was entirely wrong. Not fit for much apart from what Lydia was offering, which was already classifiable as “deluxe” by the standards of what Faith could pay for a Los Feliz domicile. Well, more like the “Glendale side” of Los Feliz, mind you. Which, although it had come up in the world, still didn’t compare to actually living right in the middle of a real neighborhood (by bougie white people’s standards).

With the budget of Faith’s modest dreams, she would have been able to afford her own one-bedroom apartment right on Vermont Avenue. But reality had other plans for her, and those plans were to live in squalor with Lydia, who she had roomed with during her first year of college (they were assigned together at random, for there’s no other way Faith would have “chosen” her) and lost touch with in the four years since they had both graduated. It was only after noticing an Instagram post of Lydia’s citing an urgent need for a roommate that she decided to reconnect out of sheer necessity. The announcement couldn’t have arrived at a more fortuitous time, with Faith being priced out of the current room she was renting in Koreatown. She felt it was unjust for the asshole on the lease to suddenly come at her with a two-hundred-dollar rent raise. But then, that was how people in control of the rent were. She could only hope that Lydia wouldn’t turn out to be the same, with Faith banking on the concept of their “personal history” to prevent any such thing from happening.

However, upon arriving at the house (which Lydia had taken up residence in after the death of her grandmother, choosing to rent out rooms in order to achieve that new American dream: passive income), located near the corner of Edenhurst and Los Feliz, it was plain for Faith to see that she was the one doing Lydia a favor. For while the outside might have been “charming,” the inside was its revolting opposite. Littered with piles of clothes on every piece of furniture and most parts of the floor, along with abandoned food wrappers of every variety (chip bags, chocolate bars, “nutrition” bars—all the wrapper and bag types were represented), empty liquor bottles, assorted hygiene products and hair accessories…the list went on. It was truly the epitome of what every hoarder’s house looks like. And, as a result, Faith couldn’t have been more hesitant to continue walking further into the deeper recesses of the abode.

To her surprise, though, when Lydia guided her to the room at the back of the house that would be hers, she found that it was completely spotless. Suddenly, its six-hundred-dollar price tag was seeming worth it again, even if it meant enduring the hell of the house’s communal spaces. Besides, maybe she could subtly infiltrate the place with her own brand of cleanliness, gradually picking things up and sanitizing the surfaces without Lydia being the wiser. Unfortunately, it became immediately apparent to Faith that no matter how much one tried to clean or sanitize the joint while Lydia wasn’t looking, it would inevitably go right back to the same state within twenty-four hours. Like some sort of unslayable Hydra, constantly reanimating. No wonder there were no other lodgers at the moment (though Faith started to question if there ever had been at all, or if that claim was part of an elaborate ruse to lure some poor simp like her into believing that Lydia was the type of person who could be lived with). And, of course, Faith didn’t want to bring up the situation to Lydia, since it should have already been obvious to her how uncomfortable and grotesque it was to live this way. And if she didn’t realize it, presenting the reality to her could mean pulling at a thread that Faith really didn’t want to. For it might lead to a complete unraveling altogether.

And so, reminding herself every day that the price and location were right, Faith did her best to learn how to sidestep the…unpleasantness. In a sense, she adopted metaphorical blinders whenever walking anywhere in the house that wasn’t her own room. But, despite her best efforts to avoid engaging too much in the common areas, Lydia had begun hosting a weekly movie night, inviting only fellow slobs who didn’t seem to notice or care just how wretched her living conditions were. Thus, Faith was obliged to join in for the latest one, for it was starting to look strange that she should be so “anti,” and she was running out of excuses for why she couldn’t be there (it was no secret to Lydia that Faith didn’t have much of a social life).

The next one was scheduled for Friday, with Lydia selecting, of all appropriate things, The Blob as the viewing choice. The 1958 one, she was sure to specify (for, like many an Angeleno/failed-in-the-movie-business type, Lydia made no bones about being a cinephile). Although Faith had absolutely no interest in watching it, she knew it was time to play nice. She even went so far as to offer to contribute some snack options, to which Lydia assured there was no need—she had everything covered.

If Faith had known what “having everything covered” meant from Lydia’s viewpoint, she would have vehemently insisted on bringing something to the “party.” For when she emerged from her room to find two other guests, Bernie and Adam (both overweight, both smelly), sitting on the couch in front of a coffee table that had nothing more than a bowl of pepperoni slices and some bags of stale chips spread out, she realized her mistake in trusting Lydia. Yet again. But it was too late to backpedal now, especially as Bernie and Adam were looking her up and down as though she, too, were one of the snacks. As Faith forced herself to sit in between them, Lydia happily started the movie. Although Faith was somewhat glad to be better informing herself on important cinema history, any enjoyment she might have gotten out of the experience was ruined by the odor of the men she was stuck in the middle of, not to mention their gross chewing noises—made as they popped the pieces of pepperoni into their mouths (the chips remained largely untouched).

When it was over, and the stinko duo had left, Faith started to clear the table of its contents only for Lydia to intervene and say, “There’s no need to do that, Faith. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

Faith knew that Lydia would never deal with it, and that the food was likely to sit there and rot away if she didn’t secretly toss it out when Lydia wasn’t around. She couldn’t understand this type of disease in someone. This unfathomable need to keep everything as rank as possible. And, only six months in to living with her, Faith was seriously contemplating moving out.

A contemplation that was further nudged a week later, when, while daring to lie (not sit) on the couch to watch something of her own choosing because Lydia was mercifully out of town for the weekend, something horrific happened to her. Something she never could have or would have anticipated. It happened right as she was watching one of her favorite scenes in Ghost World, where “Weird Al’s” hair is shown bobbing up and down. As she shifted her right foot ever so slightly, rubbing it against the fabric of the couch, she felt the kind of stabbing sensation one would associate with a shard of glass penetrating the skin. Screaming out in agony, Faith got up, hobbled toward the light switch to flip it back on and looked down to see blood streaming from her ankle area. But when she felt the source where it was coming from, there was no sign of glass. Yet she did feel some strange protrusion inside the place where a hole had been punctured.

Dashing into the kitchen to get a paper towel to stop up the bleeding (in turn, leaving some blood in her wake on the hardwood floors), Faith returned to the couch to examine what could have possibly “stung” her in this way. Feeling around, albeit with extra caution, for something, anything that might have done this to her, she found a single indiscriminate “piece” embedded in the couch. It was something hardened, sharp and white. After careful rumination, Faith decided that the only thing it could be was a pepperoni remnant from The Blob night. Maybe one of the “white mold” parts of it. As far as she was concerned, there was no other possible culprit for what could cut the shit out of her feet. For she also noticed a shallower cut on the top of her left foot as she continued to press the paper towel down on her right one. It looked like she had taken a walk on an ocean bed that was chock-full of jagged rocks. But no, all she had done was try to recline on the couch at Lydia’s place.

In the days that followed, even though Faith could feel some kind of “essence” inside the cut, she was too squeamish to, for all intents and purposes, squeeze it like a pimple to confirm that it was “empty.” Instead, she let it go about its healing process, hoping that the bump she kept seeing and feeling was just an anomaly related to how she had been cut. Indeed, of all the things Faith could have envisioned that might cut her feet like she was Amy Winehouse in 2007, an old remnant of pepperoni was definitely not on the list.

Which is exactly why that incident signaled the end of her time living with Lydia. She understood, at last, that every “affordable” “deal” has a fine-print, non-monetary cost built into it. Like how you could be relaxing in ephemeral bliss in the theoretical safety and comfort of your “own” home, only to end up with a piece of pepperoni permanently lodged inside your skin because you had conceded to cohabiting with a sloth.