What do you do when you come home early from work and find your roommate sprawled out on the floor, not moving? Do you call an ambulance immediately, or do you take a second to notice that she is on top of her yoga mat, eyes closed, legs spread apart and arms wide open to her side? Is she in shavasana, that post-yoga meditation position also known as corpse pose, or is she an actual corpse? Here’s some ways to help tell which side your roommate is on.
Do NOT touch her.
Because 1) Touching a dead person may cause you to be named as a murder suspect if she was murdered, and 2) You should never wake someone up when they are in shavasana. This is a real catch-22 situation your roommate has thrust on you, but you have to do something. How are you supposed to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and catch up on Obsessed if you have a dead person in your house? And how is she supposed to Venmo you rent if she can’t unlock her phone because she is dead? But also, if you awake her during her shavasana, she might lash out for interrupting her meditative state right in the middle of her one-month trial of TM. She might even change her Netflix password. Since this is the case, don’t touch her. Try out one of these other alternatives.
Drop some heavy, loud objects around the house.
Again, it may be impossible to tell at this point, either. If knocking your bike over wakes her up, then she was just finishing another round of sun salutations. You could drop a book near her face and see if the wind flutters her eyes a little if her practice is excellent and she’s deep into it. Her willpower is strong in this state. Give her another hour of book-dropping to see if she wakes up. If she does, call her yoga teacher for some much-deserved praise! If she doesn’t, call a coroner. She is dead.
Exclaim loudly that there is a roach.
The thought of a roach crawling near anyone would make him or her jump, no matter how advanced of a yogi they are. Screaming this may elicit a tiny movement from her body—even if it comes from just the pinky toe. If she doesn’t move and her body begins to become covered in actual bugs, then girl, you better find a new roommate because this one is dead!
Wait a while.
While these tips are good if you just can’t sit still, the best way to figure out if she is a corpse or in shavasana is to wait it out overnight. A dead body will remain a dead body forever because that’s how dead works. If she is in shavasana, she will start to recognize her breath and slowly move her fingertips, then her toes, reach her hands up in the air and come to a seated position with her hands clasped by her heart. If this doesn’t happen, call the morgue and put an ad on Craigslist for a new roommate with a Netflix password.
Hopefully she’s not dead, but if she is, chalk it up to a lesson learned: This is the sort of nightmare you sign up for if you live with someone who does yoga.
