A General "Hello" (Meanwhile, My Landlady Is Crazy)

Hello, ornery women! I have been a member of this site for a long time, but up until now I have not posted anything. I believe I was busy with "stuff" and further sidetracked by "things". Mea culpa. I look forward to posting and reading other's posts until the world is wrapped in a giant hug of a post.

Meanwhile, my landlady is crazy.

Very, very crazy.

Not crazy in a fun way. She's not "wacky neighbor" type of crazy. She's not of crazy that's a little quirkly, yet strangely endearing.

My landlady is categorically bat-shit insane.

Before I go into the particulars, let me give you an idea of what we're dealing with:

My landlady is ninety-four years old, but doesn't look a day over two hundred. She's about three feet high, and dresses in the classic "crazy-old-lady chic" style: housedress, sweater, orthopedic shoes- winter, spring, summer, or fall. Her crowning glory is a helmet-sized wig of brown curls that makes little to no effort to hide her actual white, thinning hair. A friend has remarked that my landlady looks not unlike Bathilda Bagshot from Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. She is originally from Poland, and has gotten by on about three words of English: "hello", "cash", and "now". In her spare time, she enjoys rooting through her tennant's garbage, fixing vacuous gazes upon passerbyers, and waiting for death.

Her crazy first manisfested itself to my roommate while I was on tour. She accused Dana of paying her rent with a counterfeit one hundred dollar bill (she refuses to accept checks). Her proof? A photocopy of a one hundred dollar bill with a stamp from the bank marking it as counterfeit. That could be from anyone, argued my roommate (and rightly so). Our landlady rebutted with a barage of malicious, vaguely coherent crazy threats to which my roommate could only reply with stunned promise to repay the money and a hasty retreat to our apartment. I'm pretty sure she cried, but did not tell me as much.

We never paid her the one hundred dollars we did not owe her. She asked about it a few times afterwards, but otherwise accepted our rent money without further episode. We assumed that her crazy mind had driven out the notion, and life continued on as normal.

This afternoon, I was in Manhattan putting in hours at my new catering job. After the event, I checked my cell phone messages. There was one from Dana:

"Hey, La. Please call me back as soon as you can. I'm having an issue with Mrs. [Landlady], and...well, let's just say I called the police."

By the time I was on my phone I was literally steps from our building. No yellow caution tape, no traces of a struggle. All was eerily quiet. I ascended the stairs, not knowing what I would find.

Nothing greeted me in the stairwell. I enterred my apartment, found my roommate to still be alive, and asked her what had happened.

The power went off soon after I left for work. A circuit...thingy did...something and Dana had to go down into the basement to...make it better. The technicalities are not important. The basement was locked, so Dana went to Mrs. [Landlady] to get the key. Mrs. [Landlady] refused to let her in the basement and left my roommate to sit in her powerless apartment. She called her lawyer friend, who informed her that Mrs. [Landlady]'s actions were, indeed, illegal and that my roommate should call the police. So she did. When the cops arrived, Mrs. [Landlady]'s batshit truly took flight. She screamed to the cops that Dana was not as innocent as she looked, pulled the counterfeit bill card, and flatly refused to let Dana into the basement without the presence of a police officer.

All this because my roommate wanted the power back on.

I do not know what secrets my landlady is hiding in that basement. It chills my heart to think about it. I keep with me only two comforts: 1.) according to Dana's lawyer friend, we have the law on our side, and 2.) our landlady is a frail, hobbit-sized old woman, and if it came down to it I could totally take her.

Am I a freak magnet?

AURGHHHHH!!!!! ok. so now that i got that out. i wrote this whole blog on the freak magnet experience that i had the other day and stupid me forgot to copy it first. and of course it deleted and didn't send. sooo, i will retype. but in an abbreviated version (wait. did you guys Pay the internet to lose my stuff on Purpose??)

so no, i am not trying to say that david is a freak (nor am i denying this but i am not referring to him in this case.)

i was pulling into the parking lot at the delmar shopping center (The Suburban Mecca) and noticed a guy walking in front of my car grinning. thinking nothing of it i pulled into my spot and turned to put up my window after putting the car into park. then i saw him coming over to my car and he said 'i thought you were laughing at me.' i didn't want to offend a stranger so i smiled, shook my head and pointed to the phone i was currently speaking into 'nope. my friend made me laugh.' thinking that was it i finished putting the window up (so hard not to say rolling still..) and got out of the car. he was still there after i turned from locking it and he said 'i thought maybe you had noticed that the bermuda khaki's were not working out too well for me today.' i thought perhaps he meant that they were too hot for such a humid day and gave him a shrug (still talking to brit) and turned to walk away. as i turned he pointed down to the enormous bulge. i opened my eyes a bit wider and gave him the 'poor guy. how embarassing' look. and continued to walk away with a small, less friendly smile now. he then said 'nice hair (in a gay voice. i had been thinking he Was at this point. his demeanor indicated it)' and 'Wow!' i turned a bit at this and he said 'nice ink!' i smiled again and he pointed to my chest and said 'you are big there too. i bet you get a lot of this kind of attention too' i really had no comment so i gave him another weird look and walked into the store.

after laughing with brit about it i got off the phone and shopped for kenz's care package things that i was there for, found more stuff i didn't need, paid and left. i dialed david as the door shut so i could tell him about the weirdo guy... only to have said guy walk up to my car as i was leaving, still grinning like a maniac. i smiled and said 'on the phone again' so as to discourage him from coming any closer. of course i should have known that such a guy would not get any but the most obvious of hints. he approached my door and looking suggestively as my 'big chest' (for the record, it Isn't that big) asked if he could have a peek. i glared and said 'No'. he asked 'Please' in an apologetic voice and i just shook my head and put the car into reverse. as i put it into drive to pull away he stood there and put his hands to the side and said 'guess. guess how big. within 1/2 inch' like he was a circus sideshow. i continued to shake my head at the whole situation and drove away to the sound of '10 and a half inches!'

instead of making me angry or irritated (thus the reason they approach me is my guess) i was only mildly exasperated that people like that do things like that. but as is typical of me, i wondered: did he take viagra and decide to come and freak out the soccer-moms? was he shopping at the hannaford and came upon a summer sausage and decided to have a little 'summer fun' or had he just seen the youtube video of the waiter playing the same trick on the hapless female customors?

oh, david thought i should have maced him and jo thought a taser would have been more appropriate. but alas i had none of my arsenal on me at the moment so driving away had to be my retort.