Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons

by Shelly Mazzanoble

  “I hope it’s an amulet of compromise,” Jordan said. “Or we might be here awhile.”

  “We’re role-playing!” we said, together on that at least.

  “Maybe we could take an extended rest,” Hilary, our usually quiet cleric suggested. “I think Tabby and Holden could use some sleep.”

  “You better make sure the contents of your rucksacks are unpacked and your crossbow bolts are organized by size or Tabitha won’t be able to go to sleep.”

  “Tabitha likes order,” I said. “Is that so wrong?”

  “She likes control and, yes, it can be wrong.”

  “Well,” Bertrand noted, “she is a controller, after all.”

  “That’s not true!” I shouted and then remember who we’re talking about. Wait. Who are we talking about? “Yes, Tabitha is a controller but she also is someone who wants to live in a filth-free home. A home where dust bunnies aren’t glaring down on her. A home where the plastic on the bread bag isn’t melted onto the toaster oven. A home where the bathroom walls aren’t covered in toothpaste.”

  “I have an electric toothbrush!” he shouted. “It’s messy! It sprays!”

  “I have an electric toothbrush, too!” I shouted back. “Toothbrushes don’t spray! Owners spray! We can’t use cinnamon-flavored toothpaste anymore because every morning our bathroom looks like a scene from Dexter!”

  “Well, why don’t you use one of your four towels to clean it up?” he said as he sneered.

  “Because my four towels all serve a purpose—hair, face, body, and postmoisturizer and predressing! And, oh yeah, because it’s not my job to clean it up!”

  “Uh-oh,” Hilary said. “Not the towels.”

  Bart mumbled something under his breath that sounded like it’s stupid, but whatever.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I said, it’s stupid but whatever.”

  “You’re a big boy. You splatter it, you wipe it down with a Windex cleaning cloth conveniently located under the sink.”

  Jordan grabbed a handful of popcorn. “This is gonna get uglier than an orc in a prom dress.”

  “Your character is very bossy,” Bart said.

  “And your character is very messy,” I said.

  And we agreed our characters should work on these things and finally began the encounter.

  “Get him a little basket,” Judy insisted.

  Don’t worry. I was confused, too, and I was in the conversation.

  “What’s Bart going to do with a little basket? Put it next to his bowl of curds and whey?”

  “No,” Judy said, sounding a tad impatient with my lack of vision. “He can keep all of his desk necessities in there. Then when you need to use the dining room table for something other than his office, you just put the little basket in the closet. There. Your home is in order.”

  “I see where you’re going with this,” I said. “But I don’t understand why it has to be a little basket. I can’t imagine him embracing a desk basket.”

  Judy sighed, a sure sign she had reached her patience threshold. “It doesn’t have to be a basket. But you should check Pier One before you write me off. They have plenty of masculine looking baskets. They’re brown.”

  “Oh, well, when it comes to ‘little baskets’ I think we’re way beyond enfeeblement.”

  “Just go shopping after work,” she said. “And get him something that’s his own. It will make him feel less like a guest. It’s his house, too, you know.”

  “Oh, I know it.”

  That maybe true and all, but if Bart really felt like a guest in my home—our home—then wouldn’t he try harder to be neat and tidy? I would never splatter toothpaste all over my host’s bathroom mirror and leave it there. For days.

  Regardless, I took what she said to heart. He is a stranger in my land. After we hung up, I went online and ordered Bart a gift subscription to a men’s magazine. There. I’m sure he feels more at home already.

  That night after work, we didn’t talk much on the drive home. I called Judy so the quiet wouldn’t be so obvious and uncomfortable.

  “Why are you calling again?” she asked. “I know they don’t let you watch reality television at work so whatever happened in the last eight hours can’t be that important.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her Bart and I were having growing pains and risk getting schooled in the seven easy ways to make sure your man never sees you enter or leave the bathroom.

  “I heard one of the Real Housewives of Miami gets arrested for a DUI.” It’s a lie but a low-risk one. Someone on those shows is always getting arrested for drunk driving. You’d think they might want to focus less on the custom-designed fire pits and infinity pools and maybe put a little spare change in the taxi funds.

  I could hear her clicking away on her keyboard. “Oh, which one? I’ll Google it right now.”

  That bought me a good seven minutes but we were still about fifteen miles from home. I moved on to plan B.

  “I’m supposed to bring dessert to Rachael and Lars’s house next Saturday. What should I make?”

  “Is Bart with you?”

  Uh-oh. “Umm, yeah, why?”

  “Well, shouldn’t you be talking to him?”

  This was weird, seeing as how he’s with me every morning and yet she doesn’t worry about etiquette then. Was it possible Judy was on to me?

  “We talk all the time,” I said. “Besides, you watch Food Network all day. You’re a much better resource for these types of things.”

  “What does Bart want for dessert?”

  “Oh, come on! Just give me a stupid Bundt cake recipe! I’ll take anything!”

  She was silent, but her fingers tapped away. Finally, she spoke. “Don’t put anything in his name. And get his share of the bills in cash. Do you have a lease? Because you can get a template right online. Here. I’ll send you a link.”

  “You’re being ridiculous. I’m not doing any of that.”

  “This is your investment! You need to protect yourself!”

  “Who says?”

  “The Good Girl’s Guide to Living in Sin. I’m paying extra to have it overnighted. I should have thought of this sooner.”

  The following week when our D&D group met, I had Tabitha trying out some new spells.

  “I’d like to cast fountain of flame,” I said pointing to the area on the map where Tabby’s zone would be. It’s a daily power, but casting it right away seemed like a no-brainer. It creates a zone that lasts for the entire encounter and any enemy who enters the zone or ends their turn there will take five fire damage. Pretty strategic move for someone who either forgets to use her daily or tries to cast it three times in one turn.

  “So that’s where you want to put your burst?” our Dungeon Master asked.

  “Yes, that’s what I said, isn’t it?” Jeesh. Why is he always repeating what I just said? When Bertrand shoots his bow or Jordan marks someone he doesn’t make them triple confirm that’s what they want to do.

  “Are you sure that’s the most opportune location for a burst?” Bertrand asked.

  Jeez, Louise, is this contagious? But I can see why Bertrand’s apprehensive. Tabitha accidentally scorched a few hairs on his bard’s beard by miscalculating the burst radius of a fireball or two. Or six. Whatever. It happens.

  “Yes, Bertrand, I’m sure. Tabitha’s zone is right here.” I showed them the clearly marked section on the playmat. “And don’t worry. It only hits enemies.” There. That ought to appease him.

  “Okay, then,” the DM said. “Tabitha has lit up this area here where there are no enemies within a good thirty feet.”

  Oh. “Well, no enemies currently,” I pointed out. “But there will be.”

  “Considering we’re standing over here and they came from there,” Bertrand said, pointing to my clearly marked zone on the playmat, “maybe not.”

  “You don’t know that, Bertrand.”

  The Dungeon Master did, though. When it was the kobolds’ turn they po
inted out Tabitha’s magnificent wall of fire and … laughed? Kobolds are such bitches.

  “They easily walk around the flaming area,” the Dungeon Master said. “And they throw their javelins at the wizard, assuming she’s not bright enough to duck.”

  Tabby ducked but she hit her head on a low-hanging branch on the way down.

  “That’s fourteen damage,” the DM said.

  “I had a feeling.…” Bertrand said.

  After the game Bart and I walked back to his desk.

  “Well, that wasn’t my finest moment,” I said.

  He shrugged. “You didn’t know where the kobolds were going to move next. It was rooted in good intentions.”

  “Bertrand laughed at me.”

  “Bertrand laughs at everyone,” he said. “That’s his role, just like you have your job and I have mine and the Dungeon Master has his. That’s what makes a well-rounded party.”

  “What class is it that gets to laugh at people?” I ask. “Because I totally want to play one next time.”

  “Well, that’s Bertrand’s job outside of the party. He’s actually a really good healer. But just because you play your character differently than he would doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way.”

  When we got home that night, Zelda’s litter box was ransacked and what was left of the contents were scattered over the living room. Zelda glared at us from the couch while Sadie cowered in the corner of the dining room.

  “Oh, look,” Bart said. “Sadie is helping with the chores. She cleaned out Zelda’s litter box.”

  “That’s cool. Maybe next we could teach her to do laundry or empty the dishwasher?”

  But the worst was waiting for me in the bedroom. There on my beloved duvet cover sat a blue towel. A towel that was presumably wet when it landed there this morning. A blue, presumably wet towel that has sat on my beloved duvet cover for more than nine hours. Nine hours!

  What the hell? I mean, seriously? I’ve asked him how many times to simply hang up his towel when he’s done with it. It isn’t rocket science! It isn’t curing cancer! It isn’t … a big deal? Standing there glaring down on the stupid towel I realized something monumental. The house was still standing. The animals were still alive (although one might have an upset stomach considering how much litter and kitty poo she ingested), the duvet cover was fine, and most important, we were fine. Bart and I were just fine.

  And then I had my second startling discovery in a four-second period of time. But this discovery was so alarming that even a toothpaste-splattered mirror couldn’t hide what was in plain sight: I am a controller. A controlling, meddling displacer beast who makes big freakin’ mountains out of potential mildew. And I made the people I loved feel bad in the process. That, I thought, was much worse than a wet towel on a duvet cover.

  So, okay, we’ll probably need to figure out a better place to keep Zelda’s litter box and, yeah, Bart could use a brown basket or two and I have one less pair of shoes, but that’s fine, too. I needed to make more room in the closet, anyway. And why bother having a pair of overpriced shoes that you only wear on special occasions? What’s the fun in that? Sadie is a dog. Dogs do these things. Bart is a human being. A ridiculously patient, mellow and forgiving human, but still. And Zelda? Well, Zelda is a cat and there’s not much you can do about that.

  Instead of making Sadie a monster, I remembered the things she was really good at, like protecting me from that man in the electric wheelchair who tried to run me down in a crosswalk. And taking the rap for knocking over the glass of red wine on Bart’s area rug. (She later peed on it, but it was still cool of her to cover for me.) She and I shared the best naps of our lives when it was twenty degrees inside last winter and we slept on Bart’s cold leather couch wrapped up in my Snuggie.

  Thinking back to our afternoon D&D game and what Bart said about all of us having our roles made me realize Tabitha and I had a lot in common. I, too, had the perfectly rounded out party: a striker (Zelda), defender (Sadie), leader (Bart), and controller (duh).

  Bart came into the bedroom and found me zoning out, staring at the towel.

  “Oh, no,” He ran to the bed and grabbed the towel. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I forgot that.”

  “I don’t care anymore,” I announced. “Not about the shoes or the towels or what hangers you use. I just want you to be happy here. I’m sorry I overreacted.”

  “It’s okay, Buddy,” he said. “And you have a right to be irritated. Your space is being invaded by two slobbery, sloppy, boundary-breaking beasts. There’s an adjustment period for sure.”

  “I’ve been such a bitch,” I lamented. “I can’t believe you put up with me.”

  He laughed. “Honestly, I have nowhere to go.”

  The following Saturday, I woke up to find Sadie had knocked over Bart’s laundry basket and his clothes had exploded from it like an alien embryo from its human host’s belly. But that was five days ago. The pile was growing. I gathered up the clothes and tossed them back in the hamper.

  “I’ll start the laundry,” I said.

  Bart was having breakfast—two slices of extra crispy toast and a smoothie. “Don’t use the shower yet,” he said. “I just caulked it and need to hang some protective plastic so it doesn’t get wet.”

  “Well, aren’t you fancy?” I said, pointing to the martini glass he was drinking the smoothie from. “Are your friends from Sex and the City coming over for breakfast today?”

  He laughed and looked sheepish. “We’re out of glasses again.”

  “Oh, well,” I said, filling up a bud vase with water and taking my daily vitamin.

  Well-rounded parties are worth their weight in gold coins. Well-rounded living situations are even more valuable. Can you imagine living with two controllers?

  You hung your towel up wrong.

  No, you hung your towel up wrong.

  Yeah. No, thank you. Everyone knows there’s only one right way to hang a towel. If you have trouble relating to your roommate, significant other or otherwise, maybe it would help to understand each other’s roles and, subsequently, how to play nice with each other.

  STRIKER: It’s always the quiet ones.…

  You think you lucked out with this one, huh? They’re sweet, seemingly accommodating, probably have an awesome DVD collection. They’re usually peaceful and calm, clean up after themselves, and always pay the bills well in advance of their due dates. They probably still use actual checks instead of autopay. Charming, right?

  Wrong. When a striker goes on the offense you never see it coming. They blow up faster than a helium balloon. You might think their freak-outs are out of the blue, but really they’re calculated and targeted. Watch your back. And pretty much anything valuable you own.

  Sample striker roommates: Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character in Single White Female, cats.

  LEADERS: In theory leaders are nice people to have around as they spend much of their time trying to boost your confidence, make you look good, and tell you how incredibly awesome you are when you’re down. What’s bad about that? Well, imagine if your confidence is fine right where it is, you think you look fine, and you already know how awesome you are. Too bad! Leaders like to feel needed. If you don’t have a problem they can fix they’ll create one and presto! Now you have two problems. It’s a vicious circle with these types.

  Sample leader roommates: Dr. Phil, Judy, dogs.

  DEFENDER: Ugh. I lived with a defender freshman year in college. She was a beautiful tomboy who showed up late on move-in day with a nanny whom she ordered around in German. She wore steel-toe boots and flannel shirts (so Seattle, yet so far away) and greeted the guys in our dorms with swift kicks to the groin. Can someone please tell me what question I answered incorrectly on my housing placement form for Ithaca College to think we were a good match?

  Don’t get me wrong, we had our fun, but our dorm room was not the room you wanted to hang out in. Defenders aren’t exactly the welcoming committee. If you find yourself on the lease w
ith one, feel free to throw out those barbeque tongs and plastic forks. You’re probably not hosting the next bash.

  Sample defender roommates: Mel Gibson, European football fans, soccer moms.

  CONTROLLER: Oh, come on, controllers aren’t that bad, are we? I mean, they?

  Sure, they live up to their name and like to control their environments. Some do this with mass-affecting area bursts of acid, flames, or cucumber-scented bathroom cleaner. Some do this by insisting on using a specific type of hanger. Regardless, controllers have the unique ability to affect an entire room with their moods. If you find yourself sharing fridge space with a controller, do yourself a favor and delete shows off the DVR after you watch them and hang up your coat when you come home. Please?

  Sample controller roommates: Gallagher, Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, cats unhappy with their current living situation.

  me: Oh, like the last time you told me to do a Google search to find out what that white stuff was that came out of your salmon? I almost got sent to HR when my co-worker saw those pictures!

  judy: You really need to loosen up. Come on, tell Mommy what’s wrong.

  me: It’s awful. Possibly insurmountable.

  judy: I wonder if it’s too late to get those books back from Jodi.…

  me: We were out to dinner, having a perfectly nice time, when this family gets seated next to us. Why adults bring kids to restaurants is beyond me.

  judy: So they can eat?

  me: But they can eat at Subway or Red Robin or even Old Spaghetti Factory if it’s a special occasion. Those places welcome kids. They even let them eat free sometimes. This was a nice Italian place. Tablecloths and everything!

  judy: Seems almost too fancy for you two people who drink beer out of shoes, but go on.

  me: It’s called a boot, and it’s German, and it’s not an actual shoe. Google it.

  judy: Dare I?

  me: So these babies are like four and five.

  judy: Babies?

  me: And they start playing this game where the floor is water and their chairs are life rafts or something.