Akwardness

My roommate is spouting off about things to do to the guy upstairs to get him to cease his stomping. We're standing in front of the elevator. The elevator opens, my roommate says:

"I'll make a tonne of noise, then I'll answer the door and say 'Hey, I don't know what you're talking about, I was sleeping'."

Sure enough, the guy upstairs was in the elevator with his pet elephant.

"Clint AHEM" I mutter under my breath.

"Yeah, maybe I'll answer the door naked." my roommate continues.

I jab the roomie in the back with my fingers and the air of akwardness increases signifigantly as he realizes that the guy is right beside him.

New Neighbor.

The asshat upstairs on floor seven usually plays his stereo pretty loud. I've asked him to move the subwoofer off the floor, to no avail. Now he's got a girlfriend. His girlfriend stomps around like she's a limping elephant. I've told him if the noise nuisance continues I will be phoning the cops.

The thing you have to realize about this appartment is that you only hear noise from upstairs or downstairs, there are thick cinderblock walls in between each of the apartments that don't transfer noise.

My ceiling has started to crack from the amount of stomping coming from upstairs. I go to talk to the guy about this, he answers the door fully clothed in a black turtleneck and tells me:

"It's not us, maybe it's the people next door, they stomp around a lot, we were sleeping."

Sleep a little quieter jerk face.

Do you have time? I want you to sell my husband your stuff.

My roommate knocks on the door at 10:30pm.

"Come in."

"The neighbor is at the door for you."

"Yeah right, whatever, who is it?"

"It's the neighbor seriously, just come talk to her." the roommate coaxes.

"You told her I was home? Jesus!"

So I go to the door, peer through the hole. She was HIDING from the peephole, I didn't see her until she startled me, popping up like Kramer in my field of vision.

I open the door, "Hello?"

"Hey, do you have time right now to help me out?" she implores.

"Depends, what did you need?"

"I want you to sell my husband your stuff." she states rather bluntly.

"Sell him my stuff?" I ask in extreme disbelief, trying to keep a straight face.

"You know, he's home right now so come and sell him your stuff, you know."

"Huh?" I'm thoroughly confused now.

"He's home but you have to come over and sell him your computer parts."

"I have company over right now, it's not a good time." I say, thinking of a way to duck out.

"Well are you free this weekend, could you come over and sell to him then?"

"No, I have plans this weekend." I say honestly.

"Okay, well maybe next week then? Because I really... Really... want... A COMPUTER."

"Uh we'll see."

She starts turning away, then like a zombie from a horror flick, she swings back around, "OH and do you have any of those fax things?"

"A fax machine?"

"No, cartridges like for the ink," she replies, completely oblivious to the technology behind the machines, "so that I can fax people things." Oi. I guess she really doesn't get it.

"You'll have to go to a store for those," I reply "It wouldn't make much sense for me to stock them."

"Oh okay, just make sure you talk to my husband, and sell him on a computer." Then she prances off down the hall.

My girlfriend pops her head out from around the corner and I start laughing. She can't stop giggling and neither can I. I'm a discount supplier, I don't "sell", people buy from me because they know they're getting a good deal. Fax machines don't need ink to send faxes.

Grammar anyone?

She wants a computer.

We had a brief conversation about computers the other day.

"I want you to come over and tell me if I got a good computer or not after I buy one."

"Well," I say "I could probably build you a computer cheaper than anything you'd buy in a store. Get a quote from somewhere and I'll see if I can do better."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, just get a quote."

I think about it for a second longer after the words come out of my mouth and realize that I'm going to have to charge more than the store because I really don't want to have to deal with supporting it for her. My girlfriend is vehemently against me selling her a computer at whatever profit, and I agree with her.

Retrieving what is rightfully mine.

Having not received my hamper back, I venture into the hallway. I approach the door hearing hooting and hollaring coming from inside.

Ding... Dong...

The neighbor comes to the door.

"Hello?"

"Hi, you've still got my laundry hamper, could I get it back?"

"Oh what color is it?"

"Green."

At this point the neighbor hands me the hamper back from a spot right behind the door.

"Oh sorry," the neighbor says, "I didn't know."

The door closes and I rush away with my prize.

Laundry Part II

I almost catch her red handed this time. I hear the tell-tale clink of the washing machine lid closing just before I open the door. There she is standing in front of the dryer.

"Hello." I say.

"Hi." she replies.

I open up the washing machine, and sure enough, my clothes are not stuck centrifically to the walls of the basin, but have been sifted through. She doesn't say anything to either deny or support this situation.

She's folding clothes on top of the dryer, but has a load in the dryer as well. I'm going to have to bring my clothes to another floor now. I've forgoten my hamper, so I run back into the appartment and grab it. She's still folding clothes.

I just want her out of my way. I offer her the use of my hamper so that she'll leave the laundry room.

"Yeah, that'd be okay, I really need to buy one of those, where do you get them from?" she asks.

"Pretty much any store that isn't a grocery store."

She takes everything out, even the things that are in the dryer and still sopping wet. Weird, but suits my needs fine. I throw my clothes in the dryer.

"I come out and check my clothes every 20 minutes now," she says, "I don't trust anyone in this building with my clothes anymore."

"I just use a timer. You can pick them up at the dollar store for a dollar, then you don't have to keep track."

"Oh really, where do you get those?"

"The dollar store."

"Oh okay, I'm going to go buy one right now!"

I go back to my appartment.

Half an hour later we're ready to leave (my girlfriend's brother is in town and stayed the night along with her best friend). We go into the hallway and my neighbor is standing out there over a large amount of Tide laundry soap that has been spilled all over the hallway.

"Oh jeez, these things always happen to me. The bottom of the box gave out and spilled all over the carpet. I don't have a vacuum." She says, scooping the tide up off the carpet with a pyrex measuring cup. Needless to say this method wasn't very efficient and is spreading soap all over the carpet.

"I wouldn't worry about it, the caretaker is going to vaccuum tomorrow anyways."

"Oh really? My vacuum broke, I'm going to have to get a new one, but they're so expensive."

"You can get one at the (salvation army) for about $10 usually, it's not going to be the best thing in the world but it'll do fine for an appartment."
Then she gets into the elevator with us. She has her back to the wall, and we can see the drool chap marks trailing down her jowl creases. She's still got the scabs on her cheek bones. She's puckering her lips in an eliptical movement like she's grinding something with her front teeth.

I forget what the rest of the conversation went like, but she gets off and asks the caretaker for his vaccuum. The soap was gone when we came home so I'm sure they figured something out.

Laundry Fun!

The lady comes and knocks on the door. Ten seconds later when the roomie doesn't answer the door, she starts ringing the doorbell furiously. Roomie opens the door. "Is your roommate home?"

"No he's not right now." Roomie replies.

"Oh, well there's something you should know..." the crazy neighbor states, "Someone's been stealing laundry in the building, you should take your laundry somewhere else."

"Okay." Roomie replies.

"Oh and something else... someone in the building was... RAPED!" the crazy neighbor says, "I think you should tell your roommate not to leave his daughter alone in the appartment anymore."

"I don't think that will be a problem, have a nice night." Roomie replies.

The roomie goes to check his laundry two minutes later. SHE HAD GONE THROUGH HIS CLOTHES! There was a towel on the floor and the clothes were visibly rummaged through. What a weirdo!

The crazy neighbor leaves her clothes in laundry rooms on other floors for 3 days at a time. The caretaker sees this because he mops the laundry room on a regular basis, and he throws them in bags and puts them in the storage area waiting for someone to claim them. Now the thing you have to understand is she leaves so many clothes in the laundry rooms that no one else can do laundry.

In other news, it looks like she's finally taken her car in to get fixed, six months later.