Many students choose to continue living with their parents while at college. Unfortunately, 3000 miles is a bit of a trek to go to school every day, so I rent an apartment. It's my first apartment, which was kind of scary before moving in. Living on your own is an enormous amount of responsibility, not to mention a distressing flurry of paperwork. Before you can actually live in an apartment, you find yourself tethered to a behemoth of culpability, signing towering legal documents as though you're planning to juggle Molotov cocktails in the kitchen.

So maybe it's understandable that I'm not looking forward to the end of June, when one of my roommates moves out. This guy is the ideal co-signer: he's only here about half the time, and when he is, you'd never be able to tell without a trained forensics team. I actually managed to catch him leaving his room one time, and was surprised to learn he had grown a beard since I had last seen him. You'd think he attended Milford or something.

Now, I might not be so worried if this was a peaceful little town, but Chico has a bit of a reputation (see "Other"). I've made some great friends here, but it's embarrassing what goes on Friday nights, and certainly more than a little frightening. Finding a new roommate who would rather spend their weekend on quieter, more sober entertainment is going to prove challenging.

There's a lot more to it than the impending threat of boozing frat boys, though. Living with someone is a very intimate undertaking, and involves a great deal of trust. When you have literally invited a stranger into your house, it's impossible to know right away what kind of person they are. The most visible concern, of course, is theft. With numerous consoles in our living room and about 250 games in the apartment, I may be feeling just a tiny bit of anxiety with someone new here. But that, actually, isn't even my biggest concern.

What I'm more worried about is that our new roomy will just be plain sucky. I'm more worried that he will leave garbage around, forget to flush the toilet, or use my things without permission, because those are tiny things that are silly to get really worked up about. It's much easier to kick someone out after they've pawned your TV for drink money, but you can hardly end a lease because "dude sometimes plays his music kinda loud and one time he picked his nose."

I've only got one shot at this. Wish me luck, folks!