Publication: MattOnAir.com
Publication Date: 08/15/2000

Derenger Shot #10

Mom: My roommate at 25

I'm 25 and I live at home. I guess wherever I'm living is home though. Right now home is with my sister and brother, mother and step father. The operative phrase I am leaving out, is still living at home . I did live on my own for nearly three years in Arizona , so this situation is a bit different for me: man leaves home, man lives on his own, man returns home. Strange how that has worked out.

I need to be home right now. I'm paying off some debts that haunt many, especially a stand up comic. (We don't make a lot when we start out. Some haven't made a lot when they're finished either). Plus, It suuplies me with a plethora of daily material. There are, however, some major downers to living at home.

Perhaps the worst thing about living at home is the cramping of the dating style. This is a bigger deal because I work 30 minutes from home and do comedy 45 minutes from there also. I guess it's the price I've chosen to pay.

My 22 year old brother has a girlfriend, possibly two, on a good week. He recently asked me to borrow a condom. He did the same thing some year's back, but that was used to throw at the neighbors as a water balloon. Ribbed of course, for their pleasure.

He's a cook, too. That's it, a cook. Not a doctor or a lawyer, not even a student of those professions. He simply slings poor boys and steaks. I often give him shit because he works at such a job and is content with that. He said to me, “So what, at least I'm not doing drugs are in jail!” What? I don't recall those being on the “things to do” list after graduating high school.

He also lives in what was my room in the basement before I fled to Arizona . That room is comparable to a studio apartment. Mine is just a room. And a purple one at that. My mom painted it so before I moved back in; it was the only color she had. Thanks mom, every morning I wake up and think I'm being attacked by Barney's ass.

My sister is 14 and obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. Pathetic. Pictures and junk all over her room. It's worse, perhaps than when I was around her age. Then I was dating girls who were as obsessed with New Kids on the Block. I couldn't fully perform during my first sexual encounter . . . with the opposite sex . . . because I had 5 schmucks looking at me from 800 angles on her wall! That's pressure, friends.

My mother and sister engaged in a conversation just the other day about school clothes. She'll be a freshman at a public high school. For her grade school days, it was catholic school girl dress. No variety. No style. Now, she's got options and lots of them. “I have to get my clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch because that's where the other kids are getting their's!” I say we get her her own credit card, too. Give me a break. Lazy shittin' kids today. I worked for 3 years by the time I entered high school.

Maybe if I would've saved that money, I wouldn't be back home bustin' my ass to make more and passing my brother's leftover ladies in the hallway.

The whole experience is different the second time around. Although the same participants are still in the picture, their roles have changed or even evolved. I told my mom I'm really here because I just need a place to eat, sleep and shit. She's honest too.

If you'd like to expedite my moving out, send donations to the “Help Scott Derenger get out of Hell Fund.” Thanks.

There's so much more to touch on. Maybe next time, I have to go now though. My sister needs to get on line to check her email. My mom needs me to unload her van from her day of garage sale pillaging. My step dad needs me to help him move his airplane in the garage.  And my brother needs me to hold the video camera. Bastard.

Until next time, love and laff.