The Ballad of Jackass and Jerk

Have you ever been in your home late at night thinking that you were alone, and suddenly become aware that you were quite mistaken; you are not alone? A stranger is lurking in your house somewhere in the dark. This happened to me once, and the consequences narrowly missed a tragedy.


There once was a time when I had a roommate whom I will call “Jackass” for the purposes of this blog. The reasons for the choice of pseudonym will become clearer later on. One Friday afternoon, Jackass informed me that he would be away for the entire weekend, and did not expect to return until late Sunday night. Jackass spent much of his time taking steroids and bumming about in the local gym and in the course of his workouts had met another body builder (I’ll call him “Jerk”) who made a living as a male stripper. Since Jackass owned a video camera, he would accompany Jerk to his stripping gigs and record the festivities. Later, when the performance was concluded and the bachelorette was well lubricated with adult beverages, Jackass would offer to sell her a copy of the tape as a memorial of the occasion. I suppose everyone must make a living somehow.

None of this particularly concerned me until about 2:00 the next morning when I awoke from a deep sleep to the sounds of someone moving around in the apartment. I knew it couldn’t be Jackass because he was supposed to be out of town. As quietly as I could, I retrieved the Colt .45 automatic that I kept on my nightstand and put on a pair of jeans. I carefully opened the bedroom door and peered out into the dark apartment, cocked pistol in my hand, by my side, at the ready to start shooting should the pending confrontation turn violent.

Directly across the hall from my door was the door to the bathroom which was closed (we never kept it closed) and the light was on (and we never kept the light on at night). Inside the bathroom I could clearly hear someone moving about. Soon the doorknob turned and I braced myself for a confrontation with the intruder as the door swung open.

Some people say that if a person breaks into your house that it is okay to shoot them, but I have never thought this was so. My philosophy is that an intruder must present more of a threat than simply coming uninvited into your home before one is justified in using deadly force, and on this occasion I held my fire. I am glad that I did.

Out of the bathroom walked a naked woman; completely bare-assed naked. I had never seen this stranger before in my life. She took little notice of me standing there holding a gun as she brushed past me and tried to climb into my bed. As she passed by I detected the distinct aroma of ethanol fumes trailing in her wake. Naturally I did not have the heart to shoot a drunk naked woman even if she was intruding in my house. But I wasn’t going to tolerate her gladly either.

“Wait a second! What are you doing!?! Why are you in my house?” I asked. “Jackass said I could stay here” she slurred. She could provide few details beyond this, but later inquiries revealed that this woman was one of the two hosts of the party where the stripper was performing. Jackass had picked her up and had sex with her in his car somewhere, and rather than take her back to the party he had brought her to our apartment and deposited her in his bed before returning to the party. Did I mention that I am glad I didn’t shoot her?

But the story gets better. The next day Jackass returned to the apartment to take the drunk naked woman (now fully dressed and sober) back to her own apartment. An intriguing little detail he overlooked mentioning to her at that point was that after he left her at our apartment, he returned to the party and had sex with the other host, the abandoned girl’s roommate. (Now is it clearer why I call him “Jackass”?). When the two women were reunited with Jackass there, his duplicity became obvious and a dispute arose between the two ladies. Jackass not wanting to be a party to their domestic issues (even though he was the proximate cause of them) immediately left to return to our apartment and brag about his exploits.

But the joke was on Jackass in the end. Soon after returning to our apartment and regaling me of his adventures, he realized that his video camera was not with him anymore. He left it at the women’s apartment. Ooops! (Now is it even more clear why I call him “Jackass”?).

Jackass brazenly returned to the women’s apartment to retrieve his camera, but by this time the two ladies had called a truce among themselves and directed their ire at its proper target. They refused to let him in to retrieve the camera. Next Jackass resorted to the local law enforcement community to recover his property. He called the sheriff’s office and a deputy met Jackass at the front door of the women’s apartment. The conversation went something like this:

Deputy: “Good day ladies. This fellow here says that he left a camera here last night. Do you have his camera?”

Cuckholded Roommates: “No, we haven’t seen it”.

Deputy: “Well Okay then. Thanks a lot and you have a good day”.

Jackass never got his camera back.