Why You Should Find a New Roommate Who’s Not James Taylor

Your last roommate left hair everywhere, but James Taylor leaves guitar picks.

James Taylor is always saying he’s your handyman, but when you ask if he’ll unclog the toilet he says he can only fix broken hearts.

When you confront him about his late rent check, he insists that his manager was supposed to send it.

Deep greens and blues are not the colors you choose, but he’s painted your entire apartment in a mind-bending swirl of them anyway.

You wanted to decorate the mantel with tasteful dried flowers and candles, but James insists that’s where all six of his Grammys go.

He’s always bragging about his Starbucks CD and asking if you’ve ever released something that can be purchased with your morning Frappuccino. When you tell him that no one drinks a Frappuccino in the morning, he just rolls his eyes.

Your parents now visit you constantly . . . but only after asking if James Taylor will be there.

You’ve never known anyone who owned so much denim. Somehow his dark-indigo laundry always sneaks into your load of whites.

You’re sick of his annoying friend Jackson Browne coming over for a beer, because it’s never just a beer—it’s Jackson and James getting into an endless argument about who’s sold more albums, and then Jackson crashing on your couch until noon.

You can’t listen to him quote the Time cover story from 1971 that refers to his “Heathcliffian inner fire” even one more time.

When you’re in the shower, James Taylor pokes his head in and yells, “Shower the people you love with love!,” and then laughs maniacally.

When you watch Peter Jackson’s eight-hour Beatles documentary, “Get Back,” James interrupts every five minutes, saying, “Hey, I know those cats!”

He insists that you sing “Sweet Baby James” to him as a lullaby. While it’s a beautiful song, James is not a baby but a seventy-four-year-old man who could probably afford his own place by now.

If it rains and you build a fire in the fireplace, James Taylor smugly goes, “I’ve seen both of those before.”

He’s started writing songs for his new album which are obviously about you even though he denies it, including “Sun’s Shining (and the Dishwasher Don’t Unload Itself)” and “God Damn, Never Heard a Woman Snore So Loud.”

One morning, after James has spent a raucous evening with Jackson, you wake to find his room cleaned out and both singer-songwriters gone. On the mantel, you discover a hastily scribbled note that says, “Decided to move back to North Carolina. Left a Grammy to cover next month’s rent. Sorry ’bout turning all your shirts blue. Best of luck, J.T. (& J.B.)”

He’s just too folksy. ♦