Sunday, March 19

An entry which I may regret later, but right now it sounds like a fine idea:

In honor of having renewed my hitcounter subscription, and in honor of me being an impossibly huge dork for whom spending an hour reading Google referrals is actually sort of pleasant, I bring you the cream of the crop from Essay House's first twelve months of search engine hits. Collect 'em all!

The Bitter Ones:

"fuck septa"
"philadelphia gas works is crazy"
"temple basketball sucks"
"what the fuck is an RSS feed"
"tenant cutting off utilities before roommates leave"
"women who actually enjoy sex"

The Non-Bitter Ones:

"happy happy sun"
"tiny tiny girl"
"apple juice 4ever"
"here we go gathering nuts in may +lyrics"
"chocolate chip cookie pattern"
"boys sparkly animations"
"snorting menthol"

The Thoughtful Ones:

"sometimes, you have to make sacrifices for the one you love"
"bring your boyfriend rice krispie treats"
"file delete + joke"
"circle jerk etiquette"

Medical Emergencies I Wish I Could Have Prevented Via My Website:

"woman wrapped in duct tape"
"self-done meatotomy"
"dcon teenager eating"
"toes melt puddle"
"dietpepsi virus"
"locked corset"
"reshape ribs"
"chicken having sex"
"girls who voluntarily amputated their toes"

Topics I Wish I Had Written About:

"the haunted hippy house in saranac"
"how to locate a cell phone that is lost in school"
"how to have a romantic evening if your a teenage goth"
"singing robot monkey"

Reasons To Become a High School English Teacher:

"snooze bar essay"
"informative stripper essay"
"essay on why is the house so small"
"landlady foreshadowing essay"
"lollipop essay"
"arguing essay on caffeine"
"im rubber and youre glue meaning"
"thingamabobs mermaid definition"
"sapphicerotica homework"

Free Association Fun Time:

"book technique spy phone"
"coffee machines +taurus"
"+pattern +toilet purse"
"moon in the 7th house sex"
"your house stinks yeah i think something is burning"
"be my girl sha la"
"ba doom ching"

We return tomorrow with regularly scheduled semi-content. Your patience is appreciated.

Friday, March 17, 2006

One of my housemates comes to my room to drop off my new key, an exchange which my ultra-advanced German and mad logic skillz tell me has something to do with the psychotic-looking bearded guy who burst in on my English lesson last week demanding to speak with someone about the new key system. Apparently he is either our landlord or our social worker or something else, and he has a thick Berlin accent, something which I cannot yet hear except when my housemates imitate him. Caricature is a marvelous teaching tool. Did you know?

My housemate tells me he is a dumb asshole, and cites as evidence the fact that he wants the landlord to have a key to our apartment. "And then the landlords could just come into our place any time they wanted!"

At first I do the "I don't understand your German so I'll just imitate the face you're making and then this conversation will be over faster" face. Then I sound it out. "Wait a minute," I say. "Don't your landlords here have a key to your place?"

"No! Of course not! The key-service holds the key for them. That's how it is with most landlords here."

Poking around online later I discover that if a landlord uses their own key to come into your apartment without giving you notice, it is automatic grounds here for immediately terminating your lease. My landlord, incidentally, is the Evangelical Church of Germany, people whom I personally would rank fairly low on my list of Things From Which I Need Legal Protection, but it's nice to know that the housing authorities here are looking out.

Just for comparison:

My first landlord in Philadelphia lost his copy of the key to my apartment, and because 1) there were always so many things I was waiting for him to fix and 2) I soon learned that he could not even be trusted to finish bringing the refrigerator all the way up the stairs, much less remember to give 24 hours' notice before coming over, I quickly got in the habit of leaving my apartment door unlocked whenever I left the house, hoping against hope that when I returned, Tibor the Magical Christmas Landlord-Elf would have stealthily fixed something for me. Usually my fervent prayers (and angry phone calls) went unanswered, but every so often I would find muddy boot prints around my toilet or a pile of plaster under my living-room window, and I would smile the smile of the truly blessed.

Like every fairy-tale rental agreement, however, this one eventually had to end. I got called in to substitute with the Haddonfield Symphony on Petruschka and the Dvorak Cello Concerto one night, and Tibor called while we were waiting to go on stage. "Hi, Jaime," he said. "I'm in your apartment. I fixed your bathroom window."

It was March. I had first called about the window in December. "Great!" I said.

"I was wondering if you have any towels I could use to clean up the mess I made in the bathroom doing it."

"You could use the towels catching the leak under the toilet. And while you're down there, you could fix the leak under the toilet. Just a thought." I hung up. At this point in our landlord-tenant relationship I was not above sarcasm.

The concert ended two hours later. I called my voice mailbox as I put my instruments away. "Hi, Jaime. It's Tibor. I was wondering if you could call the girls who are in your apartment and ask them to let me in. Thanks."

I returned his call immediately, alarmed. "Hi, Tibor. It's Jaime. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Those girls that are in your apartment. I went downstairs to use the bathroom and I left your door open, and they went up in there to your place and locked me out. They're being really loud in there; I've been knocking and knocking but they won't let me in. Can you call them and tell them I'm the landlord and I have to finish fixing the toilet?"

"WHAT girls?? WHAT girls are in my apartment?"

"I don't know, some friends of yours, I think there are two of them. Maybe more. I thought one of them was you but I guess not."

"I guess not, no. How the hell did they get in the front door?"

"I assume you gave them a key, and then they just walked into your place because I left it open."

"No, what?? I didn't give anyone a key to anything. Look.. I. Are they still there?"

"I don't know. I went home. I assume so."

"YOU LEFT STRANGE GIRLS IN MY APARTMENT AND YOU WENT HOME??" At this point in our landlord-tenant relationship I was not above hysterical screeching.

"Well, I figured they were friends of yours. You would think that if they were robbing you they would be more quiet about it." Good point, I conceded.

"Okay. Look." I spoke slowly and deliberately. "I am in New Jersey. I am coming home as fast as I can. You are going to go back to the house RIGHT NOW and get the strange women out of my apartment. Right now. If there is anything missing when I get home, you are going to cover the damages."

"We can discuss that later." He hung up. I stared at the receiver.

I rushed up to my front steps an hour later to find two police cars parked outside. The three cops standing with my landlord on the stoop fell silent when they saw me approach. Tibor and I stared at one another for a long moment, hands positioned near our gun holsters.

"Well, hi," he mumbled at last.

"Hi yourself."

A thin cop with a blond mustache interrupted our reunion. "Excuse me, ma'am. Do you live here?"

I stood up a little straighter. "Yes, sir, this is my apartment you're investigating."

The cops exchanged a solemn glance. "Ma'am.. have you.. seen the condition of the apartment?"

"Not.. yet," I managed, stiffly.

A chubby young redheaded policeman sighed a little. "Come on, I'll take you up." I followed him up the three flights of stairs, gripping the banister for moral support. "We turned the lights on, ma'am," the cop said, "but other than that, this is how we found the place." He motioned me inside.

I took a deep breath and stepped in. Clothes and papers covered every available surface, spewing from the open dressers onto the floor and down the hall. Trash was scattered hither and yon over the entire apartment. My bass clarinet was half-removed from its case, and reeds lay broken to splinters all across the living room floor, while my music stand lay knocked over against the coffee table. Food was spilled across several surfaces; a bowl of roasted eggplant dripped messily from the stove into the sink. Mirrors hung askew; plaster crumbled from the windows; the carpet was hardly visible.

I sighed, giddy with relief. "No sir, this is just how I left it."

The cop stared at me. "It.. it is?"

I blushed a bit. "I left in sort of a hurry. Anyway, as you can see, the bass clarinet is the only thing of value I own, and it's fine."

"I mean," he said, "we got a call about a breaking and entering, and then we found.. you know.." He gestured around.

Tibor appeared in the doorway, looking dazed. "So why weren't you here the first time you called, sir? Why did you call twice?" the cop asked him.

"It took me awhile to get over here. I called from home the first time," Tibor replied, squinting. "I guess she left," he added.

"First there were five girls, then there were two girls, now there's one girl, sir? Which was it?"

"I'm not sure, I didn't get a good look. I tried calling after them. They were being really loud. I kept knocking."

The cop motioned me over to him. "Is everything.. okay with this guy?" he whispered.

I smiled. "NOTHING is okay with this guy," I whispered back. He nodded and wrote down the number of the police report, then told me to call if I found anything missing.

"Well. That was weird." Tibor murmured when we were alone again.

"YEAH. THAT was FUCKING WEIRD, HUH." At this point in our landlord-tenant relationship I was not above swearing, and possibly also use of brute force.

"I know you think I'm crazy, but there really were girls in your apartment. I guess we'll have to have the locks changed."

"What the hell good will that do? You'll just lose the key again."

"I could get an extra key made," he replied, doubtfully.

"Fine. When are you going to change the locks?"

"Well, you know. These things take time, I try to call and call these people but they don't always come right away, they're hard to get a hold of.." Tibor trailed off, mumbling.

"Tibor." I smiled beatifically. "I'm moving out."

"...When?"

I considered for a moment. "May 15th." It sounded like a good day.

"Leave me a note," he replied, shuffling out the door.

...........

Key service! You see? I should have moved here years ago.