My Landlords Sold Me Out

I have lived in my precious second floor apartment for three years now without much reservation concerning the folks who own the restored historical building that contains my abode. Sure, it took a year to get a doorbell because they didn't want to disturb the original bank of ye olde mailboxes (the door to mine has fallen off making my bills welcome to anyone wants them) but finally relented because I begged and begged, making the case that people have had to resort to shouting at me from the grass below, disturbing the neighbors. Not everyone I know has a cell phone, making it difficult if we are planning to get together and without a doorbell on a locked building, it's quite the conundrum. So still the yelling continued.

One year later, the doorbell appeared.

However, it was wired into what I later figured out was about three other apartments. When one of my friends rang the doorbell, three other apartment doors on the bottom floor whipped open and I had to race them to the door to head them off at the pass, reassuring them it was for me and not some weirdo. Or I got used to just peering down the stairs to see if it was one of my friends. It got to the point where I just told my friends to call me when they arrived. Or if I had a date, I would just do the same or explain that if a bunch of guys tried to answer the door not to be alarmed. It wasn't that kind of date. I was constantly explaining the stupid doorbell.
That, and when it first appeared it was constantly scaring the shit out of me.

I would be fast asleep at 3 a.m. and the doorbell would ring a few times, startling me out of my dreams. I would be disoriented and horrified, thinking there was some sort of emergency. I would run down the stairs only to find no one there. This happened about three times before I figured out that people, in our non-smoking building, would be leaning on the mailboxes, sucking on their cigarettes, and their elbows would lean on my doorbell and then by the time I contemplated what the hell was going on and shoveled myself into some clothing and shuffled down the stairs, they had gone back inside. Another problem is that my neighbors just pile the mail they don't want on top of the mailboxes as opposed to throwing it in the trashcans in their houses, which they return to after checking said mail. Therefore, there is a raging epidemic of their shitty mail getting stuck under my doorbell and setting it off and I come home to incessant ringing. This happened to the person across the hall from me while they were on vacation but it was before I had figure out all the evils of the doorbell I had so coveted when I first moved in, so for one week straight I could hear their doorbell ringing OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER...etc. I pretty much stayed out of my house as much as I could for that week.

So the latest jipfuck I get besides well, the attic not being well insulated and my self-proclaimed conservation loving landlords who dig jetting around in their odd compost powered vehicle and letting their tenants either pay $200 heat bills for itty bitty apartments or get their heat shut off because they would rather eat, is and I quote, "An Exclusive Invitation for YOU to GROW RICH/STAY RICH." All twelve tenants of my building have in their hot little hands, printed with their first names, two VIP tickets, valued at $199, to a Grow Rich, Stay Rich Wealth Conference run by super geniuses (I know this by their super cool hair cuts and high cheekbones that only people who grow rich and stay rich can possibly maintain) Linda Woolf, Trevor Woolf (Oh! Double wealth! DING!), Matt Madsen and Randy Crane (He isn't smiling...maybe he needs a girlfriend or is just so smug because his crotch is covered in ladies and that's why it's a head shot). I apparently have to call now to activate my VIP seat or someone else will get it? Hmm. There is an exclamation point so this must be true. Well...I get to pick what hotel I get to go to and plunk my ass down in an uncomfortably upholstehered chair with metal legs while I drink coffee with a red stirrer straw and eat stale cookies to remind myself how much I want to grow rich and stay rich so I never have to live like this again. The most attractive location, of course, sounds like the HyattRegency Tech Center-Denver because then I will see people with blackberries and PDA's and bluetooths (teeth?) and microwaves on their head and toasting things in their jackets...all sorts of technology that will make me want to...grow rich and stay rich.

The reality is this: my landlords sold their tenants names out. That is a big fuckwad thing to do and I am going to go take a major shit in their little conservation mobile they drive all around town. And then I am going to go put something with radiation on that tire swing I covet that swings from the tree on the front lawn I always trip on and fall on my face when I deliver the rent the insures my privacy and that I will not get bogus tickets to get rich quick schemes. Maybe I will just eat an entire bag of my culinary nemisis, rye bread, and puke into thier mail slot. It would land right in their foyer.

When I get home I will sell their names to several porn sites featuring anal sex. With catalogs.
Moral: Don't fuck with me just because I live under your roof and you gave me a doorbell. I will fuck with you back and still pay the rent with a smile.

Bathroom Drains and Variances Thereof

When I'm out and about running errands, eating, lurking in video stores for discount DVD's and what not, I am most definitely the person to ask where the nearest bathroom is. I have come to realize cash registers emit a frequency that agitates my bladder upon entrance to any store which requires any sort of browsing, lurking or waiting around.

Usually when I go out to eat it's on the way home or I go to someone's house to slouch around and make really witty comments or, on some occasions, sit silently and end up dozing off because of a very boring movie having been shoved in for viewing "pleasure." Thus, I don't usually take usage of restaurants' facilities. In general, I'm not a fan of public bathrooms unless I really have no option. Let's face it. People are disgusting and they act more disgusting in public than they do in their own home for some reason. Possibly because they know there are people being paid to clean up after their non-flushing, drippy, toilet paper throwing, non-hand washing asses. "Oh! I can weigh myself and get a personal message and free lottery numbers on this scale, though! Score!" Yeah, that's one contraption this gal ain't touching.

However, in the last couple of days I have used a couple of public restrooms and one of them was at Red Lobster. I drank a lot of iced tea and had to make water before I left the premises. I was in the smallest stall in the universe which, to make matters worse, opened inward, so I had to scale the top of the door and swing over the door and land on the back of tank. Luckily, I was wearing my Kaf Kaf flip flops with great foot grip, sold only at your local Greeley head shop and just as comfy as your $70 Berkenstocks (not that I don't own a pair of those, mind you, but they aren't that geared for scaling bathroom stalls). Once in and utilizing the loo, I notice the drain in the floor located to the right of my foot. There seems to be an inordinate amount of fuzz, like lint and dust bunnies, as well as tips of straw wrappers that oddly didn't seem to match the type I received with my iced tea, and other odds and ends. Now this wouldn't seem so odd except the bathroom smelled of roses. I even commented on this to my Mom in the next stall. We enjoy critiquing bathrooms through the stalls. Sometimes other bathroom goers will chime in as well. Sometimes. Also the floor was immaculate so it wasn't as though we were in some sort of seedy rest stop with crap drifting all over the floor into the drain. I made an observation about this to my Mom who could not see the drain but she was busy having problems getting her fair squares out of the dispenser and there was some sort of pounding noise going on. I didn't want to get involved, not being the handy sort. At worst she has gotten to the stage where she carries napkins in her purse and I wasn't worried about her.

Then, today I was at Kmart getting a new rug for my dining room and some kitchen towels because somehow I have none. I have no idea where they went. They seem to go the way of my socks--one use only! This annoys me because I enjoy kitchen things so immensely more than socks. Kmart is weird to me and I think it smells a bit like stink bugs. I don't understand the people who do the buying for the clothes department. I'm not exactly sure who is going to believe that a woman wearing a quasi-camo shirt with the word "ARMY" spelled out in rhinestones in a brush script font is actually in the Armed Forces but that person is not me. Nor am I going to fork over $14.99 for it. I thought it was hideous when Kathy Ireland was involved with Kmart but they seem to have driven even her off and well, I don't know who is her heiress to the women't clothes department but they seem to either live in the jungle or sell real estate.
Yes, we are on our way to the bathroom. But so is all this crap as the bathroom is located wayyyyy in the back in the layaway department. I loathe Wal-Mart but at least they have bathrooms both in front and back of the store. Fuckers. They're evil and brilliant. At some level. Kind of like Martha Stewart. How did they not team up? How is her wagon still hitched to Kmart's dim star?

Meanwhile, wayyyyy back at the bathroom, I once again find myself staring at a floor drain. In this case, I have sort of had to wade through paper towels, odd items drifting around the floor, making sure to keep my hands at my side as I peer into the stalls to find a toilet that has managed to be flushed, oddly difficult in today's discount shopping world, and enjoy entering a roomy stall that opens outward. As I'm tapping my foot and waiting for things to happen (I get stage fright sometimes) I notice how immaculate their drain is. It appears that they might even take a toothbrush to it or get the ShopVac out. Screw the rest of the bathroom. The drain is where it's at.

This all seems so odd.

In a place that smells oddly like urine and Fig Newtons, the drain is immaculate, while the rest of the bathroom looks like hell blew through on a roadtrip to well, hell and threw all its snack wrappers out the window in this very spot. On the other hand, a rosy scented eatery with flowers or whatever was in the vase on the sink counter, was filled with filth and grime.
It just goes to show you how you can't judge a person by how they look.

You have to look at their bathroom to really tell