(no subject)
Second poll without a poll:
Imagine you moved in with a bunch of randoms. Imagine that when you moved in, your house was completely lacking in furniture. You find an immaculate lime green retro lounge suite on TradeMe and spend $240 giving you and your flatmate something to put your asses on in the lounge. Over two weeks you start putting together your vision for the living room (you know you were an interior decorator in a previous life) -- you want retro lime green couches coupled with a divan by the window for sunshine newspaper-reading, scattered with bold print cushions and a lamp with a big space-cadet head, all in shades of green, brown and red.
Imagine the excitement of the blank slate... the thrill of the green... your flatmate (henceforth known as "Big Hat No Cattle" flatmate) contributing absolutely nothing in the way of either material goods, energy or ideas, but this is good because it means you can create.
Now imagine a new flatmate moving in with a TV cabinet and two nana couches in grey/pink/blue sagging speckledness, and Big Hat No Cattle flatmate (the one with NO furniture) declaring that your funky lime green lounge suite is no longer welcome in the lounge because... well... it's green. And honestly, we want a funky house. And it doesn't go with the TV cabinet. And it's a new house... and they're old couches... and they're green.
The perfidy.
But it's not all bad! Imagine they are kindly allowing you to enjoy your furniture in the garage, where they have arranged it in a semi-circle around the washing machine. You can sit and watch shit get clean, yo.
And you object. You object some more. You reason, you debate, you threaten, you argue. You almost cry. Second flatmate folds and says she doesn't mind. Big Hat No Cattle flatmate holds firm, after all, she's the leaseholder. In a drunken fit of indignity you heave your armchairs upstairs to your bedroom, and request that whosoever objects to the couch the most should assist in dragging that upstairs also. Big Hat No Cattle flatmate assists.
You fume. You remove everything else of yours from the lounge. You vow not to contribute anything else to friendly-cosy-housemaking.
Four weeks later and imagine nobody has done anything else even approximating "funky" with the lounge. You've only just resumed speaking to Big Hat No Cattle flatmate in a normal manner. You bond briefly over an instance where the cleaner steals money from your bedroom. "Noooo... but why? But how? But check? But nooooo..." and you both agree that if you have even the slightest doubt about your cleaner, it's just not going to work.
Now imagine this: Two weeks later Big Hat No Cattle flatmate comes out and declares that she thinks you should keep the cleaner, because otherwise you'd all have to clean. Imagine that you're not particularly happy about this. Imagine that you express your view, that there's no way you want that woman nosing through your shit. Imagine that you're met with a slightly patronising, well-rehearsed speech about how the cleaner has been cleaning the house for the owner for seven years with no problems, she does a fantastic job, and without her we couldn't be "so relaxed" with our household hygiene. Imagine you say "Because heaven forbid we should clean up after ourselves" to which Big Hat No Cattle flatmate retorts snippily "Excuse me Aletta, I'm quite capable of cleaning up after myself thank you very much."
Imagine your name is Aletta.
So, two times you've expressed your opinion strongly, two times you've been shot down. Add to that, two times you've been made to feel BAD for having a differing opinion. "Well we really wanted a "funky" house..." "She's been cleaning this house for SEVEN years with no problems... who are YOU to have a problem NOW?"
What would you do?
a) Forget about it. You're old enough and smart enough to know that this shit doesn't matter one bit at the glorious end of the day. You are a tree that bends in the wind, and all that.
b) Conduct an ongoing campaign designed to break the will of Big hat no cattle flatmate's delicate aesthetic sensibilities and drive home the fact that when you live in a shared house you need to respect other people's ideas, and not just try to make them conform to your own and call it "democracy". You will get old "Botanica" book posters from the bookshop and pin them up around the house. You've done it before.
c) Hide a piece of fish under her bed. An oldie but a goodie. When she finds it you can just say the cleaner put it there, and if you can't trust your cleaner not to put fish under your bed, then who can you trust?
d) Put your foot down. DEMAND that your couches be allowed in the lounge. Nobody else is doing anything beyond the functional in there anyway. REFUSE to let the cleaner into the house, even if it means lying across the doorway.
e) Neglect to pay for some things. Such as the cleaner.
f) Find a new place, despite the fact that you love the house, and you desperately want to see the garden in summer because it's full of pretty smelling plants.
g) Just hang out in your bedroom a lot, and dwell on the idea that we all die eventually, and we all die alone.
Imagine you moved in with a bunch of randoms. Imagine that when you moved in, your house was completely lacking in furniture. You find an immaculate lime green retro lounge suite on TradeMe and spend $240 giving you and your flatmate something to put your asses on in the lounge. Over two weeks you start putting together your vision for the living room (you know you were an interior decorator in a previous life) -- you want retro lime green couches coupled with a divan by the window for sunshine newspaper-reading, scattered with bold print cushions and a lamp with a big space-cadet head, all in shades of green, brown and red.
Imagine the excitement of the blank slate... the thrill of the green... your flatmate (henceforth known as "Big Hat No Cattle" flatmate) contributing absolutely nothing in the way of either material goods, energy or ideas, but this is good because it means you can create.
Now imagine a new flatmate moving in with a TV cabinet and two nana couches in grey/pink/blue sagging speckledness, and Big Hat No Cattle flatmate (the one with NO furniture) declaring that your funky lime green lounge suite is no longer welcome in the lounge because... well... it's green. And honestly, we want a funky house. And it doesn't go with the TV cabinet. And it's a new house... and they're old couches... and they're green.
The perfidy.
But it's not all bad! Imagine they are kindly allowing you to enjoy your furniture in the garage, where they have arranged it in a semi-circle around the washing machine. You can sit and watch shit get clean, yo.
And you object. You object some more. You reason, you debate, you threaten, you argue. You almost cry. Second flatmate folds and says she doesn't mind. Big Hat No Cattle flatmate holds firm, after all, she's the leaseholder. In a drunken fit of indignity you heave your armchairs upstairs to your bedroom, and request that whosoever objects to the couch the most should assist in dragging that upstairs also. Big Hat No Cattle flatmate assists.
You fume. You remove everything else of yours from the lounge. You vow not to contribute anything else to friendly-cosy-housemaking.
Four weeks later and imagine nobody has done anything else even approximating "funky" with the lounge. You've only just resumed speaking to Big Hat No Cattle flatmate in a normal manner. You bond briefly over an instance where the cleaner steals money from your bedroom. "Noooo... but why? But how? But check? But nooooo..." and you both agree that if you have even the slightest doubt about your cleaner, it's just not going to work.
Now imagine this: Two weeks later Big Hat No Cattle flatmate comes out and declares that she thinks you should keep the cleaner, because otherwise you'd all have to clean. Imagine that you're not particularly happy about this. Imagine that you express your view, that there's no way you want that woman nosing through your shit. Imagine that you're met with a slightly patronising, well-rehearsed speech about how the cleaner has been cleaning the house for the owner for seven years with no problems, she does a fantastic job, and without her we couldn't be "so relaxed" with our household hygiene. Imagine you say "Because heaven forbid we should clean up after ourselves" to which Big Hat No Cattle flatmate retorts snippily "Excuse me Aletta, I'm quite capable of cleaning up after myself thank you very much."
Imagine your name is Aletta.
So, two times you've expressed your opinion strongly, two times you've been shot down. Add to that, two times you've been made to feel BAD for having a differing opinion. "Well we really wanted a "funky" house..." "She's been cleaning this house for SEVEN years with no problems... who are YOU to have a problem NOW?"
What would you do?
a) Forget about it. You're old enough and smart enough to know that this shit doesn't matter one bit at the glorious end of the day. You are a tree that bends in the wind, and all that.
b) Conduct an ongoing campaign designed to break the will of Big hat no cattle flatmate's delicate aesthetic sensibilities and drive home the fact that when you live in a shared house you need to respect other people's ideas, and not just try to make them conform to your own and call it "democracy". You will get old "Botanica" book posters from the bookshop and pin them up around the house. You've done it before.
c) Hide a piece of fish under her bed. An oldie but a goodie. When she finds it you can just say the cleaner put it there, and if you can't trust your cleaner not to put fish under your bed, then who can you trust?
d) Put your foot down. DEMAND that your couches be allowed in the lounge. Nobody else is doing anything beyond the functional in there anyway. REFUSE to let the cleaner into the house, even if it means lying across the doorway.
e) Neglect to pay for some things. Such as the cleaner.
f) Find a new place, despite the fact that you love the house, and you desperately want to see the garden in summer because it's full of pretty smelling plants.
g) Just hang out in your bedroom a lot, and dwell on the idea that we all die eventually, and we all die alone.