We’ve all had a high-maintenance roommate, either because of their ridiculous demands or because of their inability to take care of their household responsibilities — or even themselves.

As an undergraduate student I shared an apartment with a girl, G, who periodically ate everything that wasn’t nailed down. Before we kicked her out of our shared grocery pool, G would consume a half gallon of the apartment’s communal milk every day. When she stayed at the apartment for spring break, the rest of us returned to a kitchen of bare cabinets. She had eaten everything. She was a one-woman storm of locusts. Despite her chaste lifestyle, I discovered that our bowl of free, fruit-flavored condoms, issued by a pro-choice student association, was empty. I can’t even imagine that level of starvation.

G often threw up in her room, on or under her desk, as a result of binge drinking. She required a great deal of attention and sympathy from the rest of us, taking it by force when necessary. My frightened boyfriend and I spent many a Friday night cheering her up when she would come home wasted and weeping as a result of heavy drinking. The story does have a happy ending; G got her life together, cleaned up her act, went to graduate school, got married and had a baby and is now an excellent wife and mother. All the same, I think of how little has changed when I interact with my current roommate.

Like G, my current roommate, R, drinks 24 ounces of milk a day and can never be bothered to rinse out his cups. Often, he leaves them in various odd locations. R also has a tendency to do this with food, leaving half-eaten apples under the couch and chicken on the floor.

R has an utter disregard for the schedules and possessions of his fellow housemates. He wakes everyone up at five in the morning if he’s bored and needs someone to chat with. Last week, he threw up five times over the course of a rough Saturday night and Sunday morning. Guess who did the laundry? That’s right, not R.

A week before school started, R accidentally removed the “B”,“N” and “J” keys from my computer with a pair of scissors. Try typing papers when you can’t even spell your last name. Since R lacks a car and a license, I’m always giving him rides, as well.

To add insult to injury, his sense of humor is usually at my expense. He thinks nothing of pulling back the shower curtain when I’m shampooing my hair or using my homework for scratch paper. When I stub my toe or burn my mouth and cry out in pain, R howls with laughter. He’s even slapped me in the face because he thought it was amusing.

So why do I share my life and home with people like this? Am I a martyr? Is the rent that cheap?

G, as one may probably guess, was going through a rough patch in her life. She needed a support network and luck gave us to each other for a year. When not doing the aforementioned activities, she was kind, sweet and interesting. She played my favorite songs on her flute while I sang the lyrics and never judged my clothing, boyfriends or messy room. She made the year fun in a bizarre, masochistic way, and she taught me how to be responsible and take care of someone who needed it, even if I was far from perfect myself. Our time together was important training for my current living situation.

There are people in this world who ooze charisma, and as a result, get away with a lot. Dealing with R is often the highlight of my day. When he smiles or gives me a hug it is impossible to hold his behavior against him. It helps that unlike G, he is my 19-month-old son.

He’ll be my roommate for another 17 years, presumably improving in behavior over time.

It also helps that he has my partner and myself to watch and learn how roommates ought to treat each other — most of the time. Because of R, we are exhausted, sometimes un-showered and, more often than not, wearing clothes stained with banana.

Hopefully, because of us, when he goes to college, he’ll be a good roommate — or at least able to handle whoever fate throws his way.

Reach columnist Elizabeth Brady at features@dailyuw.com.