What, you ask, does it take to pull me out of a two week hiatus? Getting so pissed off that I nearly kill an old woman. Before nine am. Before I've even had a coffee. Okay, I didn't nearly kill her. I damn near clobbered her though--and I would have--had she not been wearing that sweet little old lady hat and the orthopedic shoes. I suppose my rage has limits, and those limits are reached through clothing. Because had that bitch been wearing sneakers...
See, G and I joined a group of friends at the Starshine Burlesque last night to celebrate our friend L's Birthday (which was wonderful, BTW. Great fun). The show didn't begin until eleven, so, you know, we were out late. Home late. To bed late. And there had been a wee smidge of the drinking. So when our doorbell went off like an air raid siren at eight in the morning it was quite the rude awakening. It took me a good minute to figure out what the noise was, what day it was, what time it was, process it all. After putting the pieces together I decided to ignore the bell. Deliveries and meter readers don't show up that early, and we certainly weren't expecting anyone. Someone had the wrong apartment, obviously. They'd figure it out and go away.
But it kept ringing. Actually ringing is too polite a word for the sound. Old buildings such as ours do not have typical doorbells. No light little "Ding dong!" to alert you. No delightful musical notes, no chime of Big Ben. We have buzzers. Buzzers that let out a God-awful "Blaaaaaaaaaaannnnt" at such insane decibel levels, you know when you neighbor's pizza has arrived a half block away. So that sound, over and over. A dying sheep bleating into a vocoder. Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaant. Blaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaant. Imagine you've only been asleep for four hours...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And you're feeling the effects of that regrettable last cocktail...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And you know, are 100% sure whomever it is is NOT someone looking for you... Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And it's eight in the morning...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. And the only way to make it stop is to do the one thing you are trying to avoid at all cost: get out of bed and see who it is.
I shuffled toward the door, croaked "Hello?" into the intercom. Nothing. Street noise. Again, "Hello?" And again just the sound of cars whizzing past. Good, I thought. They'd left. Not until they dragged my ass out of bed...which is where I returned.
In answer to the question, "Does God have a sick sense of humor?" Uh, Yeah. The second my head hit the pillow...Blaaaaaaaaaant. Blaaaaaaaaaant. As if pressure on the pillow was the trigger. Again to the door, again just street noise. Yet the buzzing continued. I figured since I was oh-so-definitely up now, there was no need for them to wake all the neighbors too. I grabbed G's robe and headed down the two flights of stairs, fully prepared to kill whomever was standing in the front hall.
And there she was on the other side of the glass: the sweetest looking little old lady you ever saw. Church-day hat. Smart winter coat. Aforementioned ortho shoes. Poor thing out in the cold. "Can I help you?" I asked sweetly, a little ashamed of my murderous thoughts seconds before.
"Where's Ida?" she barked like a Marine sergeant. My head snapped back with enough force to give me whiplash.
"Ida? I'm sorry, no Ida lives in this building."
"Well, this is the address she gave me," she said accusingly, and then shoved a piece of paper in my face with my address written on it. "and I've been standing here five minutes ringing this bell."
"I'm aware of that." I said, less sweetly. "But you have the wrong address. Unless she's staying here with someone."
"No she's not staying here. She lives here. Look." Again the paper appeared under my nose, my head snapped back reflexively.
"I'm sorry, but, I don't know what to tell you. I know all the other tenants, and there's no one named Ida."
I noticed a phone number on the page in my face, and I was going to point her to the pay phone right outside if she needed it; but before I could she turned on her heels and walked away, bitching and moaning to herself as she went. "...tell me I got the wrong address...I wrote it down...make me stand here, freezing..." She got to the main door, opened it, and made her exit. Just sashayed her sweet ass out the door. Not a word of thanks, no "sorry to disturb you." Not even a nod, something, anything. She just walked away, grumbling about all the trouble *I* caused.
Perhaps it was the accumulative effect of the twenty some-odd wrong numbers we receive a day (all of which end with a thankless hang up); or the number of times our buzzer rings and I'm summoned to the lobby for someone else's food delivery or cable appointment or boy/girlfriends; maybe it was my throbbing temples and being dragged out of bed three hours early, but I snapped. I heard it actually, like the crunch of a twig underfoot. Snap!
I ran to the door, swung it open, and launched into a world-class tirade. How I LOVE strangers leaning on my bell first thing in the morning. How she couldn't have possibly known from the hour, and how long it took me to reach the door, and the fact that I was in SLIPPERS and A ROBE, eyes half closed, that she had dragged me out of a peaceful slumber. My great joy in being subjected to demands, in being physically assaulted with paper. I apologized for all the trouble I caused, being that I somehow inadvertently switched the world over to another dimension in which it is I, not Ida, who inhabit my apartment; for which I must pay! Yes pay! For how could my discomfort be her fault, it was I who had the gall to be in what is clearly someone else's apartment--sleeping no less! I DESERVED her rudeness. Plain and simple. I thanked her again and apologized for any inconvenience.
But you see, this particular denizen of Rudeland was not fluent in sarcasm, she took my litany at face value. Her (willful?) ignorance allowed her to execute the check-mate of the century. She said, "You're welcome" and walked away.
Posted by Antigeist at December 2, 2005 01:12 PMnothing is worse than wishing you'd said a half-dozen things... except, clearly, having the presence of mind (at 8 a.m. no less!) to SAY THEM and then have them just bounce off as if they'd never been said. seethe!
kill ida, is my suggestion.
Posted by: anne at December 3, 2005 04:46 PMPardon me, but you seem supremely disinterested in what Ida's situation actually was. How was she supposed to know you were out until 4 in the morning? Maybe she was in a far worse crisis than you, who were only tired. Do you have some sort of territorial rights in your apartment house that require all misinformed ringers to perceive that you are in your bathrobe? Cumulative effect indeed! But what happened to this poor lady? That is what I would be concerned about. Instead, you just obliterated her. It strikes me you should have killed her with kindness, taken an interest in her problem, and not written her off as some unreasonable force depriving you of sleep. I don't see why you don't see that it was your problem, accidental as it might be, that she landed in your care.
Posted by: Mortimer Shy at December 4, 2005 02:29 AMOh Morty. Dear, sweet Morty.
My anger stemmed directly from the very point you made. It's true; maybe my stranger--about whom I knew nothing, initially--*was* in a crisis far worse than my being roused from bed. However there was also a chance that I--a stranger about whom she knew nothing--may have been dealing with a crisis far worse than being frustrated over an incorrect address. In those first few seconds of our chance meeting, without any knowledge of the other's predicament, we were equals. Therefore, I landed in HER care as much as she landed in mine, each having summoned the other into being, so to speak.
However you suggest that she should not have felt any responsibility for me. That one should always assume their predicament trumps that of anyone else, and behave accordingly?
The point was not that my sleep had been disturbed. As you say, it's a small thing. My point is that I would not have viewed her as an unreasonable force depriving me of sleep had I not been treated like an unreasonable force depriving her from her appointment.
Cumulative effect indeed!
Posted by: antigeist at December 5, 2005 09:26 AMHowever you suggest that she should not have felt any responsibility for me.
Well, yeah: you may have been enjoying the respite of your apartment unmolested until she decided to descend upon your fooyer at an ungodly hour and push your buzzer until someone, anyone, came out, but then to think to suggest she might gather more information from her actual [unless she's imaginary] friend before badgering you is just beyond the pale. I mean. *She wrote it down.*
It strikes me you should have killed her.
Or at least given her a little shove. Just a teensy one. Enough to correct the piece-of-paper-to-nose distance. Though really, you might have shoved briskly enough to propel her into the phone booth, with an extra nudge to knock the phone off the hook to make up for the five minutes she wasted, never to have again, pressing futilely at your buzzer. That would have been helpful.
Thanks anne, jess. You seem to understand that I had to say *something*.
But anne...on the note of what one wishes they had said; in retrospect I would love to go back to the moment where I answered the door asking "Can I help you?" and her demand of, "Where's Ida" and answer...
"I don't know, where is she?"
"I'm asking you!"
"Well how'd I know...she's *your* friend."
"She's supposed to be here!"
"And she isn't...so where'd you put her, hmmm?"
"Put her?!"
"I think I'd better call the police...who knows what you've done to her by now."
or some such.
I brought a manuscript to Mortimer's house and he came to the window in his bathrobe and shouted "What do you want?". I said "I have a book for you", to which he replied "I already have one!" and slammed the window shut.
Posted by: monk at December 5, 2005 02:07 PMOnce again Monk, you've got me invisioning Mortimer in various modes of undress. I've pleaded with you not to do so.
*s*
Posted by: antigeist at December 5, 2005 02:51 PMJesse: I said, "it strikes me you should have killed her with KINDNESS, taken an interest in her problem." Try quoting complete sentences. And what is "ungodly hour" about eight in the morning? A. already admitted that she considered answering the buzzer and rejected it only because she was too tired. The fact remains that the little lady never got her story out. I still maintain A.'s outrage is the result of cumulative episodes that made her unreasonable that morning in a case where very possibly she could have been more helpful. To A. Yes, the other person's predicament is always more important than yours. She came to you. You should still be wondering what happened to her, and what is behind the mistaken address. And as for Monk: you never wrote a book (yet), and that never happened. You have conflated and maligned a true story I told you about my visiting JD Salinger. Somehow! Also, I never appear at the window in my blue prizefighter's bathrobe. Am I the only person who thinks clearly around here?
Posted by: Mortimer Shy at December 6, 2005 03:03 AM