Jim Post: Living With Mighty Heaton

Dear Reader of MightyHeaton.com — I am Jim Swift, Heaton’s roommate. Since Heaton has gone back to be funny in his ancestral dreamland, he asked me to come up with a few posts for you all to read until he comes back. And boy, do I have some doozies for you.

We’ll start off slow with something you know — Heatonesque cartoons. The doozies will come later, as Heaton will be less likely to be checking the blog. If you like my posts, kindly drop by my page and maybe throw me a facebook like, since those are expensive to actually “buy” on Facebook advertising.

What is Heaton like to live with?  I have compiled some facts after observing Heaton in his wild state as his tenement boss.

Here is what I know:

One might think: “This man has a master’s degree. Since I do not, presumably he must be better at everything — including basics you would expect public schools in Oklahoma teach people. Like physics, and cooking.” You would be wrong.

You see, the two are related. Take the simple task of boiling water. Even women who say “I’m horrible at cooking” know about boiling water. Not this man.

It took nearly 4 incidents of fiery boil overs before I had to have an intervention with him — and get renter’s insurance, which I’ve added into his rent. (Like all good libertarians, Heaton knows that things like these are always borne by the consumer. I haven’t told him yet until he read this though. Surprise!)

The Heaton is a strange creature when it comes to eating. His grocery list each week consists of those six items, pasta, beans and diced tomatoes mixed with either pasta sauce or BBQ sauce. He writes his name on each of them. I don’t know why.

I think he acquired these strange eating habits while living in the United Kingdom, which, as Mitt Romney recently put it: “Britain is a tiny island that makes stuff nobody wants…”

Since they make things nobody wants, it would seem to make sense that they have a hard time acquiring normal and decent things sensible Americans would enjoy. This is why Heaton is accustomed to having such poor choices in food.

Socialism has really changed the man too, since he is very unlike Americans when it comes to borrowing your food items (cereal, bbq sauce, beer.) He tells you he stole from you — which they call ‘borrowing.’ Americans don’t do that, they just steal. He totally picked that up in England.

A word to the wise: Find a way to throttle your microwave’s capabilities so it won’t work late at night. Heaton loves eating spinach between the hours of 11pm and 2am. It smells like salty, sweaty balls. Part of him thinks that by eating spinach he will turn from a Meerkat/Human hybrid into Popeye, but despite us both being the same age, he is falling apart like an American car.

He loves to sing made up songs in the shower. (More on this in a future post.)

Find a way to devise a system that detects voice activated shower singing and make it turn the water ice cold. That would be awesome. Why? Heaton sings in the shower. Every day. Like a fifth grader out getting dirty in the sandlot, Heaton showers twice a day.

My neighbors have actually filed complaints, but my HOA is toothless. Now they send in requests for songs about them. The most recent one is for Bachman Turner Overdrive’s Taking care of business.

Don’t believe me? I have evidence of Phantom of the Opera and many others. He’s quite versatile, I’ve heard him sing everything from T.A.T.u to Pink Floyd. While he has devoted much memory to knowing the words, he has the voice of Warren Buffett.

Which brings me to:

Andrew plays the Ukelele, a $50 one in fact, but he treats it like he does most possessions: with utmost care. He’s quite good. In fact former roommates can tell you about how Heaton, as they put it, “spreads his misery.”

“If unsuccessful [at courtship], he sits outside his flatmates’ doors when their girlfriends are visiting and plays ukulele songs about coitus and reproductive efforts (known in some circles as “boning”) to distract everyone and spread his misery.”

When Heaton is successful, he turns on his “fireplace screensaver” and flosses his teeth before he goes to work. Say what you want about the man, but he is a professional. I do blast “Strangers in the Night” and “The Power of Love” on surround sound from my room whenever a guest does come over, just a little poetic justice for my friend and Heaton’s former landlord Ben.

It should be noted that I have been lucky enough not to be subject to a Heaton moonlight serenade outside of my bedroom door. Then again, I’m heavily armed. Because this is Virginia, and I value my sleep.

Which is not to say that Heaton hasn’t found a way to disturb this.

My new job in journalism, which I love, allows me to come to work later than when I worked in Congress. However, the two extra hours of sleep have been short lived.

Meeting Andrew, you might think he is a nice blue dog libertarian. Lies. All lies. Heaton is a full blown socialist. Every morning he leaves his room for the kitchen table, eats a strange English breakfast, and at a mere four feet from my door he listens to NPR and the BBC — both well known liberal government sponsored media outlets — and listens to them at clearly audible levels.

I used to think NPR is what put me to sleep at the dentist. These days I can’t sleep whenever it is on. I guess Heaton is trying to help me be a better person and get to work early? That or he’s a socialist.

One theory out there is Heaton is a time traveler from the United Kingdom/Canada in the 1700s. This might explain the fact that when it comes to genuine Americana, Heaton would be like the opposite of Ken Jennings on ‘Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?’

Heaton can explain anything about Scotland & the UK, or even random philosophical topics — but when it comes to football, basketball or baseball he is about as knowledgeable as King George III. He is either an Englishman from another time or a robot. Definitely not an American.

Jim Swift is the best selling author of “Is your roommate a Meerkat?” (QuadrupleDay, 2012) and is the CEO of Bomble LLC, a firm that specializes in hostile webpage takeovers. His blog is bomble.com.