IN GOOD FAITH, MY ASS. PUNYETA.
i lost my apartment key a few days ago, so i had to go to my roommate Reene, who was working in the Training Place and will be there for the next 24 hours, and ask her if i could copy her set instead. she lent me her her whole keychain, which had the apartment keys in gold, and one silver key that i didn't really care about. so i ran over to one of two locksmiths on the block (Locksmith A for this story), and had it the appropriate gold ones copied. Got in the apartment nice and safe. i intended to go back to Training Place to return her keys ASAP, but i decided a 15-minute nap wouldn't hurt, especially that i had come from a 24++ hour call myself.
15 minutes became 6 hours. i woke up at MIDNIGHT, dammit. just because of profound fatigue.
fearing Reene's dissolution of good faith, i shiveringly braved a windy Harlem midnight and walked the 5 blocks to Training Place just to return her keys, because, i'm trustworthy that way. after explanations and apologies, i shivered my way back to the apartment.
day before yesterday, she comes up to me asking me what particular keys i copied, really, and did i also copy the silver key in the chain. i told her that i copied the whole apartment set, which was in gold, right? why, i asked, what was that silver key anyway? she said it was her room key. i told her don't worry, i never knew it was, nor did i care. i smelled something fishy, but i let things slide, invoking personal quirks that involve paranoia that i could live with. apparently everything was settled and i went on my 24-hour call peacefully. the funny part was that someone in Training Place found the keys that i lost. so i had useless duplicates now. oh well.
yesterday, after my call, she knocks on my room door again if i really did copy *just* the apartment keys. i woke up in a groggy, bewildered stupor (again with the post-call profound fatigue), and said, well yes, why should i do otherwise? she said that she went to the locksmith and asked him if her roommate had keys copied. he apparently said yes, he copied "everything" in the keyring and began describing a short Asian girl as the customer.
teka wait, i said. what locksmith did you go to? locksmith B, Reene said. i went to Locksmith A, i said, because i wanted to see if they can copy our shared mailbox key, which Locksmith B has no capability of copying. i was only able to give you your mailbox key in the past because i had to roam around 96th street and eventually found a locksmith that can copy it. Locksmith B has been smoking too much weed, i quipped, trying to make light of the situation, bless his dreadlocked soul. B-but, she stammers. that's what locksmith B had said. i arched my eyebrow. the last time i was there, i say, was to buy an allen wrench to assemble my bed. you probably *know* that i have been sleeping on a decent bed for almost a month, right?
feeling really pissed, and thinking why did i even think of braving the windy cold if would get this shite anyway, i got my bag and produced the duplicates. here, i say. i'm putting these duplicates on the kitchen drawer, along with the rent receipts and all other mutual stuff. you can see that they dont include your room key. N-no, it's fine really, you don't have to, she says. i said it's okay for me to stash it there, since someone eventually found my originals anyway and returned them to me. i returned to my room, and slept the rest of the night.
i do understand that everyone has an inalienable God-given right to feel safe in their own home, but what really bums me out is that:
1. the fact that Reene changed her room lock way back last july, because the apartment had no keyed doorknobs to the rooms, but only to the main complex and apartment doors and i myself had intended to do it to my own room, but i never had time, nor energy. i often leave the door to my own room open, in my rush to go to work, exposing the chaos and the mess that puts post-WWII Eastern Europe to shame to whoever comes into the apartment.
2. in my exhaustion, i often leave valuables in the living room and kitchen, rush to my bedroom, forget to lock it, and sleep till the next day. so obviously, based on 1 and 2, if she decides to go all psycho-stalkery, she can easily wade through my stuff, sniff my smelly underwear and explore my laptop full of fanfics more than i can go to her locked room ala-Shadowcat and do the same thing.
3. for some strange reason, the landlords arranged it in a way that only my name is the primary tenant in our lease, and Reene is identified as roommate. so when she runs out on me, and fails to pay the rent, i'm the only one liable. the only safeguard is that our rent notices are addressed to us both.
4. corollary to #3: there is a big risk that she can leave me high and dry - her husband is coming supposedly this month, and they plan to look for another place, with a promise that they will look for a replacement before they leave, since they will leave mid-contract. the scary part is that...
5. since the start of us living together in july, she has been coming home at dawn or not at all, even when she is not post-call, and she says that she stays over family friends in Yonkers and New Jersey. i'm fine with that, i say, as long as you keep safe, and i can cover your ass when your mom and bother come a-calling, especially because it's your first time living away from your family unlike me who had to live with four other people during Grad School. i eventually found out last night from my own family friends in Yonkers (who knows her family friends - what a mess, really) that she was, allegedly in her family friend's words, "kinukupkop" (taken under their wing). great wording, i think. fine. as long as you pay the rent on our two-bedroom.
6. and other little, meaningless things that i don't really mind but can be invoked by a less tolerant person: i never charged her for her first key duplicates and the extra few dollars when you convert our rent cash to money order, as well as my bottles of Whole Foods (or which Ted Allen fondly calls Whole Paycheck, which i realized the truth of, to my chagrin) gourmet juices which she consumes with wild abandon (although she offers to pay for it, i say no, kasi juice lang naman, diba?) and the extra laundry card that i made abono for her because i didn't want to hold up her personal laundry duties just because i'm using our supposedly mutual card. and that she fails to clean up her thick clumps of fallen hair from the drain and the bathroom floor when she leaves the shower. (i do leave thick clumps of fallen hair myself, but living with four other people for 5 years has taught me to pick up the mess.). and the fact that i had provided more mutual furniture pieces for the apartment.
apparently, if you make a tally, which, mind you, i never do or did until now, i'm thinking, i have more to lose in this department. and i know that she is smart, shrewd and cunning enough to realize that. and i do know that i let it happen that way, just because i wanted to assure Reene who was living with someone else other than her family for the first time ever in her life that we'll be having a legit setup, that i'm doing these things all in good faith.
and now she has trust issues? please. fontang enna with pakshet on the side. JUST BECAUSE SHE CHOOSES TO BELIEVE AN ELDERLY GANJA-SMOKING MAN WITH SMELLY DREADS WHO OWNS A LOCKSMITH OUTFIT AND PROBABLY HAS AN ALTERED SENSE OF TIME AND SPACE BECAUSE OF ALL THAT WEED, DOES NOT MEAN I HAVE TO PROVE MYSELF TO HER NOW. believe what you want to believe, as long as you pay the rent. someone here has fed the poisonous thought that maybe she was trying to find an opening in order to walk out on her share of her apartment blamelessly and hole up in Yonkers, but i'm storing that in the farthest recesses of my mind as of now. i don't know if i'm being too gullible, but i'll just have to wait and see about that.
goshfuckingawful. anyhow, laundry awaits.
15 minutes became 6 hours. i woke up at MIDNIGHT, dammit. just because of profound fatigue.
fearing Reene's dissolution of good faith, i shiveringly braved a windy Harlem midnight and walked the 5 blocks to Training Place just to return her keys, because, i'm trustworthy that way. after explanations and apologies, i shivered my way back to the apartment.
day before yesterday, she comes up to me asking me what particular keys i copied, really, and did i also copy the silver key in the chain. i told her that i copied the whole apartment set, which was in gold, right? why, i asked, what was that silver key anyway? she said it was her room key. i told her don't worry, i never knew it was, nor did i care. i smelled something fishy, but i let things slide, invoking personal quirks that involve paranoia that i could live with. apparently everything was settled and i went on my 24-hour call peacefully. the funny part was that someone in Training Place found the keys that i lost. so i had useless duplicates now. oh well.
yesterday, after my call, she knocks on my room door again if i really did copy *just* the apartment keys. i woke up in a groggy, bewildered stupor (again with the post-call profound fatigue), and said, well yes, why should i do otherwise? she said that she went to the locksmith and asked him if her roommate had keys copied. he apparently said yes, he copied "everything" in the keyring and began describing a short Asian girl as the customer.
teka wait, i said. what locksmith did you go to? locksmith B, Reene said. i went to Locksmith A, i said, because i wanted to see if they can copy our shared mailbox key, which Locksmith B has no capability of copying. i was only able to give you your mailbox key in the past because i had to roam around 96th street and eventually found a locksmith that can copy it. Locksmith B has been smoking too much weed, i quipped, trying to make light of the situation, bless his dreadlocked soul. B-but, she stammers. that's what locksmith B had said. i arched my eyebrow. the last time i was there, i say, was to buy an allen wrench to assemble my bed. you probably *know* that i have been sleeping on a decent bed for almost a month, right?
feeling really pissed, and thinking why did i even think of braving the windy cold if would get this shite anyway, i got my bag and produced the duplicates. here, i say. i'm putting these duplicates on the kitchen drawer, along with the rent receipts and all other mutual stuff. you can see that they dont include your room key. N-no, it's fine really, you don't have to, she says. i said it's okay for me to stash it there, since someone eventually found my originals anyway and returned them to me. i returned to my room, and slept the rest of the night.
i do understand that everyone has an inalienable God-given right to feel safe in their own home, but what really bums me out is that:
1. the fact that Reene changed her room lock way back last july, because the apartment had no keyed doorknobs to the rooms, but only to the main complex and apartment doors and i myself had intended to do it to my own room, but i never had time, nor energy. i often leave the door to my own room open, in my rush to go to work, exposing the chaos and the mess that puts post-WWII Eastern Europe to shame to whoever comes into the apartment.
2. in my exhaustion, i often leave valuables in the living room and kitchen, rush to my bedroom, forget to lock it, and sleep till the next day. so obviously, based on 1 and 2, if she decides to go all psycho-stalkery, she can easily wade through my stuff, sniff my smelly underwear and explore my laptop full of fanfics more than i can go to her locked room ala-Shadowcat and do the same thing.
3. for some strange reason, the landlords arranged it in a way that only my name is the primary tenant in our lease, and Reene is identified as roommate. so when she runs out on me, and fails to pay the rent, i'm the only one liable. the only safeguard is that our rent notices are addressed to us both.
4. corollary to #3: there is a big risk that she can leave me high and dry - her husband is coming supposedly this month, and they plan to look for another place, with a promise that they will look for a replacement before they leave, since they will leave mid-contract. the scary part is that...
5. since the start of us living together in july, she has been coming home at dawn or not at all, even when she is not post-call, and she says that she stays over family friends in Yonkers and New Jersey. i'm fine with that, i say, as long as you keep safe, and i can cover your ass when your mom and bother come a-calling, especially because it's your first time living away from your family unlike me who had to live with four other people during Grad School. i eventually found out last night from my own family friends in Yonkers (who knows her family friends - what a mess, really) that she was, allegedly in her family friend's words, "kinukupkop" (taken under their wing). great wording, i think. fine. as long as you pay the rent on our two-bedroom.
6. and other little, meaningless things that i don't really mind but can be invoked by a less tolerant person: i never charged her for her first key duplicates and the extra few dollars when you convert our rent cash to money order, as well as my bottles of Whole Foods (or which Ted Allen fondly calls Whole Paycheck, which i realized the truth of, to my chagrin) gourmet juices which she consumes with wild abandon (although she offers to pay for it, i say no, kasi juice lang naman, diba?) and the extra laundry card that i made abono for her because i didn't want to hold up her personal laundry duties just because i'm using our supposedly mutual card. and that she fails to clean up her thick clumps of fallen hair from the drain and the bathroom floor when she leaves the shower. (i do leave thick clumps of fallen hair myself, but living with four other people for 5 years has taught me to pick up the mess.). and the fact that i had provided more mutual furniture pieces for the apartment.
apparently, if you make a tally, which, mind you, i never do or did until now, i'm thinking, i have more to lose in this department. and i know that she is smart, shrewd and cunning enough to realize that. and i do know that i let it happen that way, just because i wanted to assure Reene who was living with someone else other than her family for the first time ever in her life that we'll be having a legit setup, that i'm doing these things all in good faith.
and now she has trust issues? please. fontang enna with pakshet on the side. JUST BECAUSE SHE CHOOSES TO BELIEVE AN ELDERLY GANJA-SMOKING MAN WITH SMELLY DREADS WHO OWNS A LOCKSMITH OUTFIT AND PROBABLY HAS AN ALTERED SENSE OF TIME AND SPACE BECAUSE OF ALL THAT WEED, DOES NOT MEAN I HAVE TO PROVE MYSELF TO HER NOW. believe what you want to believe, as long as you pay the rent. someone here has fed the poisonous thought that maybe she was trying to find an opening in order to walk out on her share of her apartment blamelessly and hole up in Yonkers, but i'm storing that in the farthest recesses of my mind as of now. i don't know if i'm being too gullible, but i'll just have to wait and see about that.
goshfuckingawful. anyhow, laundry awaits.