1988

Living with Willy

I didn’t really do much else other than work the first few months for with out a car, I didn’t have much of any way of getting around.  Willy, the guy I rented the room from was a nice enough guy, a few years younger than me, he was an accountant for some company the other side of DC from Reston. Because Willy’s commute around the DC Beltway every day took a good hour each way, he left early in the morning and often didn’t get home until after seven so I didn’t see him too much during the week which worked out well as it was like I lived alone.  Sometimes on weekends if Willy was going to the grocery store, he would ask if I wanted to go and I would take him up on it.  There were a couple of times I went out to a bar with Willy.  One of these times we went to an Irish bar in Alexandria where they had a comedian show and while sitting there some girl caught Willy’s eye and he went over to talk to her, and they connected and then started dating.  A couple of weeks later she started staying the night at Willy’s place which became a problem as she would get up before me and take a really long shower using all the hot water so when I got up to shower there would be no hot water. After a couple of times of this happening, I got earlier one time and took my shower first leaving her with no hot water.  She wasn’t too happy about and complained to Willy who then complained to me.  So, I said “I know how it must have been for her for I had been experiencing the same thing when she took her shower first.”  Willy didn’t have much to say about that for a moment and then sputtered, “Well try to us less hot water.”  Well, I wasn’t going to continue taking cold showers so then next day before Willy got home, I went down to the basement and turn the hot water heater thermostat up.  I had found that Willy, being real miser about money, had turned it down to like 100°, the recommended setting is 120° so no wonder we were running out of hot water.  I turned it up to 130° and for the next couple of days I enjoyed hot showers until it went back to being cold.  Later that day I went down and checked, and Willy had turned it back down to 100°.  Neither he nor I ever said a word about the incident after that but he started staying over at the girlfriend’s house more often.

After a couple of months of being in Reston I went down to a bike store and bought a new twelve speed road bike which on good days (not too hot, not too cold) I would ride to work.  Willy also had a bike and he introduced me to the W & O.D. a rails-to-trails bike path that runs 42 miles from Arlington, though Reston to Purcellville.  Willy and I would a number of times go riding west from Reston some ten or fifteen miles before turning and riding back.  I really enjoyed those rides particularly when the trail got out into the Virginia countryside.   

I missed Julie and Anne, but I focused on my work and didn’t let it bother me, or so I told myself.

Alone