Returning from prospecting, invariably having spent every last nickel in the field on food and gas, my finances needing repair, time to find roomates...
Presumably this is better than being homeless, I never found it so, it was more grueling by a long shot, listening to the opinions of others and the gross conformity of imbeciles...
The one, an old alcoholic, brilliant, an engineer when sober, but something had went wrong with his life, he lost his wife and his kids, and I, not knowing, would offer him a drink and he'd go completely off the rails, find my bottle, finish it up, trying to wake us up at nine in the evening to tell us it was time to get up, I was already up, still up, hadn't yet gone to bed, the other roommate, Homunculus, he wasn't so impressed, he'd tolerate it to a point, he was just hoping to get his over-unity machine built.
Homunculus, regaling me with his endless plans to improve the world, he's got the alcoholic engineer working on his over-unity machine, I tell him it's a fraud, he disagrees "How do you know?" I ask, he explains "...because it's how the Americans are powering their anti-gravity machines...".
The engineer, he'd tell him the same as me when he's sober, "can't be done...", but he's giving up trying to reason with him, takes the money for the magnets and wires and uses it to get drunk. I understand.
Homunculus, he has everyone on his side, people learn just to play along, the owner of the local Chinese restaurant tells him long stories about how they never use MSG and how everything is free range and organic, that's enough to cure his imagined allergies. Complaining to me that the Prime Minister hasn't answered his latest letter requesting the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or to stop spraying contrails overhead, and I'll dryly reassure him that doubtless the Prime Minister has responded, only the reply was tied up with Canada Post. Checking his phone, he tracks the weather, lets me know the 'morrow's forecast, he won't leave the house, I've a 12, 18 hour day to look forward to working outdoors in a 40 below blizzard.., And if he was up when I got home he'd be watching William Shatner's "Weird World", which he took to be fact, concluding every episode with his own pet theory "It was probably Bigfoot...". And I could think of no better answer...