The Ethics of Poverty-Stricken Roommates

So last Thursday I took a swing into Red Deer after work to pick up a few things, and I returned home to an empty apartment. Well, it's not like it's exactly an apartment... I mean, my roommates and I live in a basement, but it's not really so separate from the main house. There's just the basement door, and it's locked so we don't go upstairs, but the owners can and do come downstairs whenever the hell they want. They just need to give us notice if they want to check out our rooms. So, it's like we have this common area, but only the rooms are ours? I don't know what you would call it. I don't even know if I could have said the house is empty, because for all I know that could have been a lie. There could have been somebody upstairs. I mean...

*Joel slaps himself*

So yeah, none of my roommates were home. Not too surprising really. They're all students at the Adventist college right across the street, and their student desperation is starting to reach critical mass after the heartbreak of midterms and the utter anguish of their upcoming finals.

So in light of the community TV finally being free, I dragged my PS3 out of the backpack I had it stored in after my visit to Calgary the previous weekend, and set about playing some Uncharted. It's nice having a habitable living room again. When I first moved in back in November the entire apartment was a disaster. I resolved to keep my hands clean of the debacle and stick to tidying up after myself and only myself. The situation has since been resolved after the two messiest members of our little community were not-so-kindly told to get the hell out, but my previous habits have remained. There's not one item of food or piece of cutlery in the kitchen that belongs to me and I stick to cleaning the bathroom and sweeping the floors.

Anyways, I plugged in the brand new PS3 that I purchased with the full set of Rock Band for a substantial amount of legal tender, then plopped down on the floor, stomach still full of the overpriced takeout food I usually get. I was wearing some brand new clothes that I had purchased on a trip to Red Deer that I took in my relatively new vehicle.

After I played for half-an-hour the roommates came back from what I believed to be a study session, but instead I heard plastic bags being jostled into the kitchen. Well! They must have gone on a trip for groceries, I thought to myself. I'd taken them to the store a couple of times myself. They typically like to go to the store together.

One of them came into the living room.
"Joel!" he shouted in his thick accent as he came swaggering in with a bag of soy chips in his hands. Already I was a bit puzzled. Soy chips? Who the hell buys those?
"Hey, Nhial. Did you guys just go grocery shopping?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Naw, man. We went to the... how do you say it? We went to the food bank."
I paused. "The food bank? You guys have to go to the food bank?"
"Yeah, we did. Here, have some chips! Did you bring any new movies for us?"
I pointed to the stack in the corner.

Wow. Just, wow. Here I am, some asshole sitting on his ass, doing nothing while people who live in the same house as him are desperately broke. I mean, I work two jobs and all, so that's why I can afford all this crap. But what about them? And I'm not even sure what I should do! Should I help them out? Give them some food? Do I kick in for groceries? Is this just a temporary thing while they're waiting for some money from relatives?

It's hard out here for a pimp.