Warning: I am a stark raving bitch. This week started with stupidity and ended with insanity. Neither of these qualities was mine at the particular time I was subjected to them, which makes it even worse. As a consequence, I’ve been doing something I rarely do: drinking heavily to kill reality. I’m ordinarily not a big drinker. Which of course, makes this an even WORSE attempt at making sense, since I have no practice writing under this condition. But if you bear with me, I will explain the “insanity” portion of this week’s journey.
This afternoon, when I got home from work, I had officially had my ass kicked. I dealt with rejection several times this week. I worked more than 70 hours. Sure, I spent a lot of time goofing off here, but still…quite a work week. I had no less than 2 yawnfests per day (otherwise known as business meetings) and simply felt stressed.
So I decided to stay in for the evening. I’d had enough of dealing with other people for the week. I figured, I’d run out and get some groceries. Then I’d drink a couple of the beers I planned on picking up, eat a good dinner, read a book, and maybe build a fire. Hmm…wonder what’s on tv? What a great, peaceful evening with my kitties and some peace and quiet and no idiots.
I got into the Lauramobile and went to the Stop 'n Shop.
While I was out, my landlady observed a couple of things.
Thing 1: The window on my truck is down. It’s down because it’s broken and won’t go up. I told her earlier in the week that I was having it fixed as soon as the part came in.
Thing 2: My oil tank in the basement is quite low. It’s low because I don’t want to pay $300 for a full tank of oil when it’s near the end of the cold season. I also like to keep it fairly cool in my apartment, so it’s okay with me if I have to stretch it a bit to make it into spring.
After considering Thing 1 and Thing 2, but using none of the creativity of Dr. Seuss, my landlady decides that clearly her best course of action under these extreme circumstances is to take two steps of her own.
Step 1: Enter my apartment without permission or advance warning and have herself a little look around.
Step 2: Call the police.
Certainly, the rolled down truck window and the low oil tank are indications of…of…well, I’m not sure what. But they definitely require police intervention.
As I drive the Lauramobile back to my domicile, I’m having happy thoughts. I’m thinking maybe I’ll drink the entire six pack I just bought. I’m thinking about the book I’m going to read and the tv I’m going to pretend to watch while just staring into space and RELAXING.
But barely upon getting said six pack into my house, my landlady is on top of me.
“There you are! I was so worried! The truck window was down and the oil tank was almost empty! So I had to get into your aparment right away and then I found that your apartment looks like someone ransacked it!”
I can certainly understand her panic. After all, I WAS gone for nearly 40 minutes.
However, I’m most confused about her houskeeping complaints. I’m not a neat freak, but I’m pretty clean. I look from her wide-eyed, horrified face to my livingroom at large, and I try to visualize it through a stranger’s eyes. I see a couple of wine glasses sitting on the coffee table from the other night’s attempt to escape reality. And the corkscrew is still laying there as well. I see that the tv is quite dusty and that the 1930s doll I have sitting on a chair in the corner is askew. She looks like she’s napping. Perhaps she is.
Since I did, as I said, work a 70 hour week, the housekeeping suffered. Laundry needs to be done. There are glasses in the sink. But RANSACKED?
That’s when the police officer shows up, lights flashing and radio squaking. He wants to know “what seems to be the problem.” So my landlady tells him.
“The truck window was down and the oil tank was low! So I entered the apartment to find THIS!” At which point, she gestures at my unkempt apartment.
The officer looks at her blankly. So she goes on.
“I was worried and she didn’t answer the phone, and then…this mess!”
He looks into my livingroom again and this time says, “Looks better than my house. You wanna tell me what the problem is?”
She sputtered around some more about how she was just “worried about me” and finally admitted that “I guess nothing is wrong.”
The police officer left and I went with him, determined to get the rest of my groceries in the house without police intervention, another rejection experience, or any other major life-changing episode. And the cop was actually very nice to me. He asked me if she was “okay” and made the rolling-of-eyes sign, universally recognized as an insinuation that someone is looney. He suggested that I change my locks and get a restraining order so that my privacy isn’t further violated. I told him about the time last month that she was in the psych ward. We had a little chuckle and he offered me a beer when he got off duty. He was actually pretty cute, but I thought I’d had enough excitement for one evening.
But the fun wasn’t over! Three minutes later, the oil man knocks on my door and demands money. Why does he want money, you might ask, when I haven’t requested delivery? Well, it’s because my landlady has taken it upon herself to make this expense FOR me. The landlady is standing in the hall with him, and the oil man looks decidedly squeamish. As soon as she turns to go upstairs he gives me the “looney expression” and says, “Don’t let her do that to you!” I gave him his money and he left.
Are you ready? Because here’s the part where I lose it.
I’m sort of…well…nuts. I’m quite emotionally intense, tend to feel everything to extremes and be overreactive. This means that MY insanity is the only craziness I can manage to deal with. What? You say you’re fucking nuts? I sympathize! I understand how you feel! I know a bit about the difficulties of taking drugs to regulate your condition, the problems with monitoring yourself. I feel for you.
Because clearly, you’re nuts too, O Landlady of Satan. And that’s fine. I don’t mind that you’re into all sorts of freakish new age healing bullshit. I don’t even mind so much that you talk to your hand like that kid from the Shining (I’m not making this up). Holographic Repatterning you say? Muscles resonating with questions you say? Hey, it’s YOUR craziness…use it to your heart’s content. Have a ball. Fly your freak flag high!
But do it in your own fucking apartment. I will keep MY insanity down here, and you keep yours up there. Don’t let it leak through the walls and seep into my space. In the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, “We’re all stocked up here.” Whacko neighbors are perfectly acceptable as long as they’re whacko in their OWN space. Unless you want me to call you during my next panicked, crying fit, you can ignore those voices telling you that evil trolls rolled my window down and aliens sucked the oil out of my tank.
I don’t want to play a game of dueling looneys with you. I spent all my freaked out, emotionally disturbed enerty on my work week. You’ll have to play that game with the voices in your head.
-L
