Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Resident Alien



No, no, no this blog isn't about Spacehog , that great band from the mid 90's. As an aside, however, I do feel that 'Resident Alien' was one of the most underrated songs of the 1994-1996 era in alternative music. With that said, however, I must tell you that the term 'Resident Alien' actually refers to my former landlord, Judy C*** Red**** . I censor her name out only because once you hear about how horrible she is, you're going to want to find her and run her over with you car.

By the way...this is going to be a long blog so go get some Coke and some food. Ready? Get ready to get pissed.

SO! As you all know, Keith and I have moved to a new apartment because:
1) Chaney left, and an ancillary 3 bedroom would be superfluous
2) Because of shoddy construction, a leaky basement, and copious amounts of insulation (wait, that's a lie) our apartment is, for all intents and purposes, a dung heap. The place isn't fit to relieve yourself in, on, or near.
3) The sound of mice running around at night was a little tiresome
4) It killed my A-game sometimes
5) Judy, our landlord, is a space cadet, or resident alien if you will.

In the tumult that was our move, I had left something very valuable to myself in the old apartment:

my killer machete!!
So I stopped by the apartment just to pick up the machete, and that worked out well. As I began to make my departrue, Judy starts talking to me. What ensued was about to be the catalyst for the destruction of 'cordial relations' with Judy:
Me: Ok, well here's my machete...I best be on my way
Judy : Ok I'm glad that worked out. Hey I need you to move some filing cabinets from the basement up here to the living room.
Me: Well call Keith and I next week and we can work out a time to...
Judy : : Yeahhhhh I didn't want to call you and Keith beacuse I didn't want to bother you. I thought that when you guys left you were gone for good and didn't want to bother you with a call (red flag #1: that makes no sense at all).
Me (feeling a dull pain in my head): Ok, well, we do have cell phones and it's not a problem if you call...
Judy : : And ok, beacuse I wanted to give you your security deposit back, and when I cashed Keith's check (red flag #2: Keith had written Judy a check for our last month's rent strictly as collateral. What was supposed to happen we she was going to take our initial security deposit=1 month's rent and use that as our last month's rent instead of giving it back. Make sense? Yes it probably does, because you have a brain in your head)
Me:...wait Judy. Why did you cash Keith's check? (red flag #3: Keith wrote the check with little to no money in his checking account. Why? Because the check was supposed to be ripped up. Now that Judy had cashed his check...)
Judy : : Keith's account was overdrawn! I couldn't believe it! I was so scared that it would affect my credit and it would look bad on my record and blah blah idocy idocy...
Me (throbbing pain in head): Ok Judy you cashed his check, over drew his account, put him in danger of bouncing checks, and you didn't want to call he or I???!!
Judy : (absent mindedly):...yeah!
Me: Why did you do that?!?!?!?!
Judy : Well, because I wanted to give you cash for your security deposit!
Me: (no words come out, just stupification)
From there on out the details of the conversation get sketchy, but I'm pretty sure I told this oaf of a woman to sit her Ay Ess Ess down and wait for Keith to come over, so that she could give him back his money, he could pay his bank, and we could pay our bills. She looked at me like I was speaking Chinese, people. None of the things that I were saying even made a blip on her radar. This woman is so dead to the world of common sense and rational thinking that she didn't even know that when you take a check to a bank to 'cash' it, they don't just give you an equivalent amount of cash for free. That cash has to come from somewhere Judy, and in this instance, it was out of Keith's depleted bank. What a ho face.
So anyway she makes us move all of this stuff out of her house just so that we can get the security deposit back that we should never have had to be given back to us. After tromping through the already cluttered apartment (this woman has about 78 pieces of furniture in the house), and over stacks of un-forwarded mail (thanks, Judy) we finally get her crap moved up from the basement. She then proceeds to give Keith back his money that should not have been taken from him, yet fails to concede that maybe she should pay for his overdraft fees since she violated out implicit agreement. What followed from that point on was not pretty, because it involves me yelling at a 50+ year old woman. BUT SHE DESERVED IT SO HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED!!
Me: I hate you Judy (paraphrased)
Judy : Well, I'm just glad that things ended on a positive note! (smiling)
Me: Judy, things didn't end well. You cashed a check you weren't supposed to, overdrew Keith's
account which he has to pay for, didn't deliver our mail, and didn't even have the common decency to call Keith and tell him you messed up his account
Judy : (imagine cricket noises)
Me: If you do something like that, Judy, you need to call someone and tell them. You are the landlord. You need to be in touch with us.
Judy : Well I was just concerned about my credit and...
Me: That's dumb it was not your money that you were messing with. You were ruining someone else's credit and didn't tell them. That's irresponsible and FFR, you need to call people
Judy : (imagine cricket noises) Well I tell ya I've been doing this for about 20 years now and have never had a problem ever!
Me: Well this is a problem and you need to call people
Judy : Everyone seems to have a good time here and I love having students come to stay here!
Me: (resolved that nothing I say to Judy will hit a commonsensical chord within her brain, I give up). Ok well bye, Judy. I wish things could have ended on a better note
What a freaking nightmare of a woman. I swear, if you are ever in Grove City and think that it might be a good idea to rent from Judy C*** Red*****, I will punch you in your mouth really hard. That's it, rant over. I'm so pissed now.

2 comments:

Joel Settecase said...

Wow, Judy sounds like a real peach. Let me tell you what I enjoyed about that entry:
1) The changing pictures of your landlord. Not only is she a special alien space cadet, but she is a shape-shifter too! Now that's crunk.
2) I learned a little something about how to rent an apartment. All my life I have lived either with my parents at home or with my surrogate grandmother, Nancy Paxton, at GCC, so my lifeskills pertaining to living in the real world are virtually nil.
3)The fact that Keith is back! Okay, that has nothing to do with this entry, but it's saving me the task of opening another comment box for his latest entry. I can't wait till you guys square off over IKEA! It's gonna be CRUUUNNNNNK!

Anonymous said...

that's one of the funniest things i've read in a while...seriously!!!

next time, just hit her in the head with your machette.


ps. keith, where's the wal-mart rant?! and I have to be honest, the day i came to your office, everything but my flip flops where from wal-mart...so i wait in breathless anticipation for this one. ;)