the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
3.17.2008
Balls.
I finally grew a pair, bit the bullet, and started looking for apartments in earnest.
So far, well, things are not going entirely well. The unsurprising problem seems to be that there are a lot of sketchy, awful characters on Craigslist.
"What? Crazy people on Craigslist? What are you on, woman?" you might ask, shaking your head in disbelief, thumb and forefinger massaging your eyeballs to relieve the tension headache I've just given you. But yes. It is true.
Seriously, everytime I've looked for a place to live through Craigslist, I've ended up meeting up with crooks, (male) drama queens, and people trying to induct women into doing amateur porn. Luckily, this round hasn't produced anyone too offensive -- just incredibly annoying.
Case in point: Donald.
Donald was one of the people whose apartments I was supposed to check out today. When I called the number in the ad and he answered, I immediately got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. If I were a guy, I'm sure my nuts would have drawn up into my lower abdomen with anxiety. Donald immediately sounded older (like a crotchety old man, really, but with a Latino sass about him), and had this thick accent with a raspy voice. We exchanged the usual pleasantries, and trying not to be rude and asking directly how old he was, I asked, “What do you and your roommate do?”
Then, as they say, the shit hit the fan.
He was like, “Oh, I can tell you’re a girl in your early 20s, axin’ people what they doo. You can’t go ‘round axin’ people what they doo just like that. You gotta come to my apartment, I gotta see what kind of person you are, then you axe me your questions.” I laughed it off, thinking he was just being some eccentric old kook.
Later on, I was talking to a co-worker about how I felt uncomfortable checking this place out. He suggested that I cancelled, so I called Donald back. I stumbled over my words a little, and I could tell he knew that I was bullshitting when I said that I wouldn’t be able to come, and could we schedule for later in the week? It was just as well, though, since I have no intention of going at all. He said, “Sure, that’s fine. So where you livin’ now?” And I automatically responded, “New Jersey.”
“Oh, okay. Where do you work?”
“Uh… 44th Street.”
“And what avenue?”
“Um, I don’t think I should tell you.”
“And why the hell not?”
This was irritating, so I said, “What? You won’t even tell me what you and your roommate do, and you expect me to tell you where I work?”
This set him off again, and he went off with, “You think I’m givin’ my apartment to any old person off the street? I gotta know what kind of person you are before I make a decision. Maybe you’ve seen my listing online before – that’s because I’m careful with who I want to give the room to, okay? Maybe once you come see the apartment, you come in, meet me, you meet my roomma—I show you a picture of my roommate—, you see my antiques, then you think to yourself, ‘Wow, okay, this is an okay guy, I could definitely live here.’ Now, where do you work?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to tell you.”
“Oh, I see, this is one big game to you, isn’t it? What, you need a little spanking, then? Why you people always want to be playin’ your games?”
I just sat there with the phone in my hand and my mouth open in shock -- not necessarily because of what he said really, but that yet again, another Craigslist-induced conversation inevitably turned to "spanking" (and you old-school readers will know what I am talking about... I am too embarassed to link to it) -- and he went on and on, describing how he cleaned up the area “all by myself in 1983 – before you were around” (how did he know that, I wondered), and how nobody had shot him in the face yet -- “and thank God for that” – then inexplicably said, “But time heals all wounds, you know?
“I would be willing to give you my room,” he concluded with grandeur, pretty much out of nowhere.
“Sorry, I don’t think so,” I said, wearied by the utter hopelessness of the conversation.
"Okay, I’m out!” he said, and I'm pretty certain we hung up in unison, with equal aplomb.
[Peek-a-Foo]