The Man Living on our Floor Parts One to Four

The Man Living on Our Floor Part One

A man has been living on our floor for four weeks now. Even though he's full of shit I don't mind. He knows I'm onto him and so doesn't try to bullshit me except when he's also bullshitting himself, which is often.

I first met him some time before he was the Man Living on our Floor. In fact, when we first crossed paths he was Moustache Guy at our housewarming party. It says a lot about the moustache that I refer to him as Moustache Guy. He could easily have been silk scarf guy, tall guy, too-old-to-live-in-a-hostel guy, posh guy, bullshit guy...

I asked Moustache Guy what he did for a living and he said he was an academic, which would have explained the pipe and many of his mannerisms. I asked him what kind of academic and he said "software". This was my first clue he was full of shit. He'd affected the style and mannerisms of an Oxford don (circa 1956) while claiming to be a "software academic". I imagine a software academic would not be wearing a silk scarf, leather boots and smoking a pipe - he'd be in deep blue Wrangler jeans, asics sneakers and drinking diet coke.

One of our friends played us a self-penned song at the party. Moustache Guy said, "As an academic, I focus on the lyrics and I really like the lyrics. Very deep". I felt like saying, "Well as a friend, I was trying not to focus on the lyrics". It was pretty obvious the whole "academic" thing was a ploy to attract young women. Moustache Guy told me a bit later that the age gap between his father and mother as well as that between his grandfather and grandmother was 25 years.

Moustache Guy wasn't sleazy like most of the mid-forties guys who live in hostels, he was more of the romantic type. He just wanted to meet a beautiful, classy and tall 18 to 20 year old to settle down with - just like grandpa and dear old dad.

The Man Living on Our Floor Part Two

So we'd see Moustache Guy whenever we'd hang out at the hostel, which was pretty often. He'd be trying to chat up a young lady, smoking rollies and/or telling tall tales. A substantial part of his posh guy show was made up of family history lectures. "My family were one of only ten in England not to sign the Magna Carta". "My family has had two US Presidents". "I'm a count". "I'm also a prince". The Magna Carta bit was pretty inventive, if not true, so I didn't bother questioning that. The count and prince claims were obviously bullshit but kind of cool. However, having studied US history, and feeling I owed it to my great lecturer Dennis Deslippe, I had to query this President business. He hadn't done as much research on this story as he had on the Magna Carta tale so it fell apart pretty quickly. Turns out there were two Presidents with the same surname as Moustache Guy - therefore, from his point of view, there were two Presidents in the family. His surname isn't even unusual - he's not a Roosevelt or even a Bush.

Not long after arriving in our historical town Moustache Guy met the girl of his dreams. An 18 year old tall beautiful private school girl from Sydney. He set about talking reems of bullshit to her and showing her about town. She set about getting it on with the perpetually wasted 19 year old hipster guy from Melbourne who then got it on with someone else before leaving for Cardiff in the hope of getting it on with more people. I say hipster guy but he was really more a hipster-looking guy because all he listened to was crap RNB and worse hip hop. Anyway, Moustache Guy realised that Sydney Girl wasn't into him so, as any reasonable person would do, he tried harder. More bullshit about his family and more buying her drinks with his shrinking savings. One day she left to head back to Aus to study. Moustache Guy spent the rest of his money on diamond earrings as a going away gift. Can't blame a man for trying. I don't think he ever heard from her again but he did get a glimmer of hope when she alluded to one of his unanswered emails when emailing another hostel-dweller. "I know she reads my emails," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "You're jousting the windmills of love," I thought.

The Man Living on Our Floor Part Three

My phone rang. It was Carla.

"I have a big favour to ask. (Moustache Guy) has been kicked out of the hostel. He's standing on the street freezing and needs somewhere to stay. He's too embarrassed to ask you himself."

It wasn't a big surprise. He had no money and was prone to arguing the toss with management over tenants rights (not the brightest idea when you owe rent). The cops kicked him out despite a promise he'd received the day before from the super at the cop shop down the road. "The head of the police station gave me his word that it was not a matter for the police but for the sheriff. I also talked to him about what I know about certain things concerning the Cumbrian independence movement. He said I had a point." Moustache Guy (who'd actually shaved his moustache by this point - no matter) was kicked out by cops on another super's shift.

Moustache Guy turned up at our place with a huge suitcase on rollers. He was wearing a suit, tie and scarf. "I'm sorry guys," he said. "I have nowhere else to go. It'll only be for a few days". That was a month ago.

The Man Living on Our Floor Part Four

I asked The Man Living On Our Floor what went wrong with his dotcom business. I can't paraphrase his story because it didn't make sense so I'll try to reproduce it for you (I should point out that all I asked was, "What happened to the dotcom business?"):

"I was involved with the Cumbrian independence movement. Some people think armed struggle is the only way to deal with authority and I agreed. But then there were other ways of doing things and I disagreed. And then I tried to tell people in authority about certain things but they didn't listen. I said, 'Doesn't anyone care about this' but no one did. I even talked to high level magistrates. I really have a problem with authority when it won't listen, which happens a lot. Anyway, the Cumbrian business and the fact I wasn't sure that our patented technology wasn't in the public domain already was why our dotcom failed."

Over the time I've known the Man Living on Our Floor I've tried to piece together his real story. He speaks and dresses like a posh Englishman but had spent some time in Aus. I figured he'd gone out there during the dotcom boom then hung around for a bit, travelling to rodeos and country races. And talking shit. But as I asked more questions I discovered that he'd spent most of his youth in Aus as well - attending three unposh Melbourne high schools before joining the army. I don't think he could have been in the army very long. He would have made an excellent British officer in the Boer War (ie planning doomed outdated attacks on guerrillas by poorly trained East Londoners while drinking tea served by natives and smoking his pipe) but he wouldn't have been able to hack the Aus army (or, most probably, vice-versa).

So I came to the conclusion that the Man Living On Our Floor was dyslexic and the posh thing an elaborate facade masking an insecure man. I kept a close eye on him when he looked at the paper, suspicious that he couldn't actually read it. Turns out he could. So I adjusted my estimation from "severe learning disability" to "just not very bright".