my batshit crazy landlady and the case of the broken window
my batshit crazy landlady and the case of the broken window
[please to be ignoring the tense shift that occurs somewhere in the middle. i'm too tired to go back and fix it.]
There is a young woman named Kate who lives in a ramshackle apartment in a college town. Her landlady, let us call her Medusa, is, to put it bluntly, a crazy person, but she's generally the harmless sort, and is a respectable steward of the property she owns. For instance, one morning Kate called Medusa about a broken hot water heater, and it was fixed by the time she returned home from school. Though Medusa is a helpful landlady, what makes her problematic is her pathological lying.
This, however, is not a story about Lying Medusa and Made Up Tales that Aren't Worth Lying About In the First Place. This is a story about A Reprehensible Specimen of the Middle Aged trying to play the Maturity Card on a younger woman, because said A Reprehensible Specimen of the Middle Aged is also the sort to believe the old proverb that the best defense is a good offense. Or maybe it was the best offense is a good defense. Whatever the case, gentle reader, I would invite you to bear witness to the incident and keep in mind that your humble narrator does not think all middle aged women are patronizing shrews. Just the Reprehensible ones.
Our story begins this evening at 10 p.m., as Kate walks into her bedroom, finds it seasonably warm and muggy--seasonably, anyway, for the out of doors. As she tinkers with her window unit air conditioner, she notices broken glass. She raises the window blind and finds a whole pane knocked out of her window. This is when she sees that there is broken glass at her feet. (Thankfully, she did not step in the broken glass, nor did her cats.)
Kate is a young woman living alone, and it is late and dark outside. She has a choice whether to panic or not. Inner voices speaking on the side of panic remind her of how she once had a different apartment violated by hoodlums who broke a window and fished out her purse with a stick. She remembers finding the stick on the ground and the purse gone, and she remembers being very sick at her stomach and afraid. However, inner voices speaking on the side of a calm, measured response remind her that her landlady's minions as well as her husband have been working in the neighborhood all week, scraping old paint from the windowsills in preparation for re-painting. She conjectures that one of these minions might've broken the window and forgot to mention it to his employers or to her. She decides she will call Medusa and hopefully set her mind at ease.
As you have already had painted for you a portrait of this landlady, and as you are here to read an exciting tale, you will doubtless be anticipating some trouble with this phone call. Kate should have been, too. And Kate might've guessed the exact nature of the trouble, but she was upset--either disturbed at having her home vandalized or annoyed that her inconsiderate landlady didn't inform her of the break, especially given the broken glass that fell into the house. So Kate did a foolish thing. Kate picked up the phone and called this Reprehensible Specimen of the Middle Aged after 10 p.m.
I will admit, gentle reader, that Kate has a way of talking too fast and vociferously when her blood is up. Be that as it may, her object in calling Medusa was not to badger or blame. It was twofold: report the problem and inquire about just the sort of accident scenario related above. But Medusa's reply, paraphrased here, was less than helpful. I'm sure you're overreacting. Why do you let yourself get like this. Even worse: I can't believe you'd accuse me of something like that, and I find your accusation so rude. You can be such an ugly person, Kate.
Accuse her of what? you might ask. And how did the phone call turn so quickly to aspersions on Kate's character. I can let you guess why. What's more, these anwers aren't anything like an answer to Kate's actual question, are they? If you said no, you would be right, gentle reader. There was, eventually, after much personal insult, defensiveness, and general haranguing, an answer that addressed the content of the question: Weren't they out there mowing today? He must've hit a rock that flew through the air and broke the pane. Look for a rock.
Seeing no rock, just broken glass, Kate repeated her desire to phone the police, all the while wasting her breath in repeatedly telling Medusa that, no, she wasn't accusing her of a) employing degenerate criminals to do her repair work or b) having a death wish for her tenant. She was merely seeking information. Luckily, Kate has had a previous run-in with Medusa that involved just this sort of histrionics, the kind that Medusa immediately feels out of misplaced immature defensiveness and tries to pass off to Kate as her own by asserting that she is immature and overreacting, as well as behaving rudely and uglily. So Kate bent over backwards to say as nicely as possible that Medusa's judgment and integrity was not at stake, merely the memory of her people for accidents. Kate was not as calm as she might be, but she was much calmer than she was the first time she encountered this patronizing offensive-defense phenomenon, as reported in a heretofore unpublished manuscript my batshit crazy landlady and the case of the water damage from the motherfucking pressure washer used on poorly-sealed windows.
After ending the phone call, having been the Bigger Person (which Kate would add is "seriously no fun and sucks, especially when you know you're not the one in the fucking wrong"), Kate, still being a little rattled and aware of having impaired judgment, called her trusty Awesome Boyfriend for a less irrational person's opinion on whether to file a police report, just in case. (Medusa, by the way, should've fulfilled that role, if she wasn't Medusa.)
Just as Kate and her Awesome Boyfriend concluded that a police report couldn't hurt, her cell phone reported a waiting call, from: Medusa (landlady cell). Medusa's first words were that she had just awakened her husband, Walter Mitty. I will pause here and give you, gentle reader, the opportunity of making your own guesses about the outcome of the phone call and, indeed, of the case. Was Medusa, as you might conjecture, calling to further berate her client for mistrusting her and her loyal handymen? Was she calling to offer more and now husband-approved proof of the lawn mower/big rock theory? I fear you are smarter than both Kate and your humble narrator, because you must've realized the story has both a happy and a victorious ending, or else it would not be reported to you.
The facts, in reality, were these: Walter Mitty had found a broken pane that morning, had attempted to replace it, and, upon finding the replacement pane too large, had left the gaping hole in the window. (And, apparently, broken glass on the ground.)
Now, Kate had many options at her disposal in dealing with Medusa. She might've been just as 'ugly' with her as she'd been accused of being. She might've mentioned details of blame like the broken glass on her floor and the existence of the mystery in the first place (and the fact that, two weeks prior, Medusa's handymen had weed whacked her herb garden, such as it was, and furthermore had inexpertly pruned her azaleas to the point that they might not bloom properly next spring, but I digress...). What she did, instead, was play Medusa's game better than Medusa.
Oh, I'm so relieved to hear it, she said with a smile in her voice. Thanks so much for calling and letting me know! I'd thought that might've been the case. I was hoping it was. That's exactly why I called you before, to see if that was it. It's just that I've had an apartment broken into before, which was a scary episode, so it got me a little upset. But I'm so glad to know it was just a misunderstanding.
Kate gave her no opportunity to overapologize and attempt to martyr herself. She simply poured out relief and goodwill and then quickly ended the conversation, having preyed upon the woman's sympathy for her earlier panic (in a perhaps unfair way, but it is what it is).
Thus we end the case of the broken window. But we have not reaching the saddest but most fortunate part of this tale: such an ugly scene will likely have been forgotten by Medusa soon, even by the next time she and Kate speak. One might guess that a penchant for chattering and lying without much forethought doesn't allow one much time for dwelling on and remembering the day-to-day injustices one makes the world suffer. The moral of the story is, dealing with someone who wants to make you think they're the Bigger Person by simply telling you you're acting like the Small is a little like dealing with a child: don't get too upset, don't back down, and be aware that after the tears are over, the anger will have evaporated. Let it evaporate, but don't forget.
Gentle reader, I thank you for your kind attention, and I hope and pray that if you have what Kate might call a "batshit crazy landlady," you stay on the side of fortune and are not forced to deal with the snakes.
[please to be ignoring the tense shift that occurs somewhere in the middle. i'm too tired to go back and fix it.]
There is a young woman named Kate who lives in a ramshackle apartment in a college town. Her landlady, let us call her Medusa, is, to put it bluntly, a crazy person, but she's generally the harmless sort, and is a respectable steward of the property she owns. For instance, one morning Kate called Medusa about a broken hot water heater, and it was fixed by the time she returned home from school. Though Medusa is a helpful landlady, what makes her problematic is her pathological lying.
This, however, is not a story about Lying Medusa and Made Up Tales that Aren't Worth Lying About In the First Place. This is a story about A Reprehensible Specimen of the Middle Aged trying to play the Maturity Card on a younger woman, because said A Reprehensible Specimen of the Middle Aged is also the sort to believe the old proverb that the best defense is a good offense. Or maybe it was the best offense is a good defense. Whatever the case, gentle reader, I would invite you to bear witness to the incident and keep in mind that your humble narrator does not think all middle aged women are patronizing shrews. Just the Reprehensible ones.
Our story begins this evening at 10 p.m., as Kate walks into her bedroom, finds it seasonably warm and muggy--seasonably, anyway, for the out of doors. As she tinkers with her window unit air conditioner, she notices broken glass. She raises the window blind and finds a whole pane knocked out of her window. This is when she sees that there is broken glass at her feet. (Thankfully, she did not step in the broken glass, nor did her cats.)
Kate is a young woman living alone, and it is late and dark outside. She has a choice whether to panic or not. Inner voices speaking on the side of panic remind her of how she once had a different apartment violated by hoodlums who broke a window and fished out her purse with a stick. She remembers finding the stick on the ground and the purse gone, and she remembers being very sick at her stomach and afraid. However, inner voices speaking on the side of a calm, measured response remind her that her landlady's minions as well as her husband have been working in the neighborhood all week, scraping old paint from the windowsills in preparation for re-painting. She conjectures that one of these minions might've broken the window and forgot to mention it to his employers or to her. She decides she will call Medusa and hopefully set her mind at ease.
As you have already had painted for you a portrait of this landlady, and as you are here to read an exciting tale, you will doubtless be anticipating some trouble with this phone call. Kate should have been, too. And Kate might've guessed the exact nature of the trouble, but she was upset--either disturbed at having her home vandalized or annoyed that her inconsiderate landlady didn't inform her of the break, especially given the broken glass that fell into the house. So Kate did a foolish thing. Kate picked up the phone and called this Reprehensible Specimen of the Middle Aged after 10 p.m.
I will admit, gentle reader, that Kate has a way of talking too fast and vociferously when her blood is up. Be that as it may, her object in calling Medusa was not to badger or blame. It was twofold: report the problem and inquire about just the sort of accident scenario related above. But Medusa's reply, paraphrased here, was less than helpful. I'm sure you're overreacting. Why do you let yourself get like this. Even worse: I can't believe you'd accuse me of something like that, and I find your accusation so rude. You can be such an ugly person, Kate.
Accuse her of what? you might ask. And how did the phone call turn so quickly to aspersions on Kate's character. I can let you guess why. What's more, these anwers aren't anything like an answer to Kate's actual question, are they? If you said no, you would be right, gentle reader. There was, eventually, after much personal insult, defensiveness, and general haranguing, an answer that addressed the content of the question: Weren't they out there mowing today? He must've hit a rock that flew through the air and broke the pane. Look for a rock.
Seeing no rock, just broken glass, Kate repeated her desire to phone the police, all the while wasting her breath in repeatedly telling Medusa that, no, she wasn't accusing her of a) employing degenerate criminals to do her repair work or b) having a death wish for her tenant. She was merely seeking information. Luckily, Kate has had a previous run-in with Medusa that involved just this sort of histrionics, the kind that Medusa immediately feels out of misplaced immature defensiveness and tries to pass off to Kate as her own by asserting that she is immature and overreacting, as well as behaving rudely and uglily. So Kate bent over backwards to say as nicely as possible that Medusa's judgment and integrity was not at stake, merely the memory of her people for accidents. Kate was not as calm as she might be, but she was much calmer than she was the first time she encountered this patronizing offensive-defense phenomenon, as reported in a heretofore unpublished manuscript my batshit crazy landlady and the case of the water damage from the motherfucking pressure washer used on poorly-sealed windows.
After ending the phone call, having been the Bigger Person (which Kate would add is "seriously no fun and sucks, especially when you know you're not the one in the fucking wrong"), Kate, still being a little rattled and aware of having impaired judgment, called her trusty Awesome Boyfriend for a less irrational person's opinion on whether to file a police report, just in case. (Medusa, by the way, should've fulfilled that role, if she wasn't Medusa.)
Just as Kate and her Awesome Boyfriend concluded that a police report couldn't hurt, her cell phone reported a waiting call, from: Medusa (landlady cell). Medusa's first words were that she had just awakened her husband, Walter Mitty. I will pause here and give you, gentle reader, the opportunity of making your own guesses about the outcome of the phone call and, indeed, of the case. Was Medusa, as you might conjecture, calling to further berate her client for mistrusting her and her loyal handymen? Was she calling to offer more and now husband-approved proof of the lawn mower/big rock theory? I fear you are smarter than both Kate and your humble narrator, because you must've realized the story has both a happy and a victorious ending, or else it would not be reported to you.
The facts, in reality, were these: Walter Mitty had found a broken pane that morning, had attempted to replace it, and, upon finding the replacement pane too large, had left the gaping hole in the window. (And, apparently, broken glass on the ground.)
Now, Kate had many options at her disposal in dealing with Medusa. She might've been just as 'ugly' with her as she'd been accused of being. She might've mentioned details of blame like the broken glass on her floor and the existence of the mystery in the first place (and the fact that, two weeks prior, Medusa's handymen had weed whacked her herb garden, such as it was, and furthermore had inexpertly pruned her azaleas to the point that they might not bloom properly next spring, but I digress...). What she did, instead, was play Medusa's game better than Medusa.
Oh, I'm so relieved to hear it, she said with a smile in her voice. Thanks so much for calling and letting me know! I'd thought that might've been the case. I was hoping it was. That's exactly why I called you before, to see if that was it. It's just that I've had an apartment broken into before, which was a scary episode, so it got me a little upset. But I'm so glad to know it was just a misunderstanding.
Kate gave her no opportunity to overapologize and attempt to martyr herself. She simply poured out relief and goodwill and then quickly ended the conversation, having preyed upon the woman's sympathy for her earlier panic (in a perhaps unfair way, but it is what it is).
Thus we end the case of the broken window. But we have not reaching the saddest but most fortunate part of this tale: such an ugly scene will likely have been forgotten by Medusa soon, even by the next time she and Kate speak. One might guess that a penchant for chattering and lying without much forethought doesn't allow one much time for dwelling on and remembering the day-to-day injustices one makes the world suffer. The moral of the story is, dealing with someone who wants to make you think they're the Bigger Person by simply telling you you're acting like the Small is a little like dealing with a child: don't get too upset, don't back down, and be aware that after the tears are over, the anger will have evaporated. Let it evaporate, but don't forget.
Gentle reader, I thank you for your kind attention, and I hope and pray that if you have what Kate might call a "batshit crazy landlady," you stay on the side of fortune and are not forced to deal with the snakes.