The La Brea Tar Pits

Yes, but why?

I walked into my bedroom, noting that it contained almost no similar traits to the one I claimed back in Canton. The lamp was still on, and my roommate, Hani, was all the way under her covers. I remembered that there was no lamp in my room back home; that I would read until tired enough to fall asleep, wrapped up in my too-big blankets in a too-big bed, and then have to drag my comfortable ass back out of bed and across the 6-foot tundra to my light switch.

This bedroom was weird. Half of the closet was filled with someone else's clothing. The bureau was decorated with only one photo in a frame and an old wine bottle, instead of ten photos in and out of frames and a generous supply of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies fished out from my pockets right before I'd do a wash. What a strange, unfamiliar place, this little room. The window was constantly open, the blinds constantly flapping in the breeze. It felt cold, somehow, on this hot, sticky night.

I leaned down to pick up some shoes that I had hastily tossed on the floor at the foot of my bed, and --

"BOO!"

I peed a little.
Turns out it was my roommate,
who had popped out from her little cocoon.

Hani had been hiding under her covers, awake,
waiting for me to approach.
She had to have been waiting for at least 20 minutes.

I'm beginning to really love this strange, unfamiliar place.