A Prospective Renter

Tiger, the dog, is howling in his sleep, and I have been seeing shapes for the past three hours. Well, "shapes" is perhaps the wrong word—shadows. First it was the mouse moving across the kitchen floor, seen from the other room. Then it was random arms, bent at the elbow, flitting around door-ways and corners. I wish I was making this up.

The cats outside have resumed their fight for the evening.

I have to write now or I won't be able to get to sleep. Thanks, obsessive-compulsion, but I haven't written in oh-god-I'm-not-going-to-check-the-date long. By the way, hi Mom, hi Dad, hi various people who really shouldn't be reading this.

Today, my landlady (we're not allowed to use names until we've moved out—something about "libel") showed the apartment to another prospective resident. Freddie has arranged for the sale of his keyboard on craigslist, and the buyer was supposed to pick it up today. As the illustrious F-Wong is in Seattle, I was acting as liaison for this transaction. The dude never showed. But as I was sitting on the couch, waiting for The Buyer to show up, there was a twisting sound, the grinding of a key against the pins of a lock. Or pair of locks. My heart leapt briefly, and I thought Kevin had returned for a while, so I would have someone to talk to. Wait, that sentence was totally gay. Maybe I should make something up about how he could handle the keyboard transaction and I could leave the apartment for a while. Anyway, the door ground open, followed by three short knocks. This being opposite the established order of events the world over, I offered up a tremulous "hello?"

It was the landlady, with prospective renter in tow. After some brief confusion (I thought the apartment had been shown already, but apparently this was a separate guy and she had put up another notice for this entry—possible, but not bloody likely, but I am as they say, "laid back" and decided not to press the issue) they ascended the stairs. The fellow looked around, and asked me if I was a "mushizican." After about four attempts, I managed to grasp that he was trying to say "musician," and with my poor ear and his thick accent, well, we just weren't going to be engaging in any sparkling conversation then, now we we? As the land lady led him through the three modest bedrooms, I made a list off all the things that would not sell this place—filthy commode, with unflushed toilet (there is a water shortage, dudes), clothes strewn on the floor of one room, and general disarray throughout the compartments. Still, a far cry from the pornography, bongs, and fortified wine bottles Kevin and I waded through when we first toured the place.

Sitting on the couch, I tried to focus on my gameboy while their conversation filtered through the house.

"Is an air conditioner?"
"There used to be, but it broke. We're thinking of getting it fixed as soon as possible."
"Why is no fix now??"
"…."

"Where is third bedroom?"
"That space with his desk was the room."
"That is not bedroom"
"You can do whatever you want with the space."
"That is not bedroom. Is not big enough."

And so on. When they were in the living room, the landlady attempted to point out the closet (which is full of junk). She tried to open it, as if the chair in front of the door did not exist. When the door did not swing easily open, I pointed out the existence of the chair, which she moved all of three inches, before trying to open the door again. Looking through the 3-inch gap she had managed to forge between door and frame, she saw the vacuum cleaner and numerous cleaning supplies, and opted not to show off the wonders space of the closet.

At which point, the renter asked: "Is this a bedroom?"

Much of the rest of the house was toured in silence.

After they descended the stairs, I heard some heated discussion, and it sounded as if the renter was pissed, as if he were calling the landlady on her bullshit. His unique mixture of Socratic irony, indecipherable foreign accent, and eventual belligerence may have just saved him a year in hell. The lucky git.