tenacious L

Back in March of 2000, Mr. Bump and I made our love real and signed a lease on a teeny tiny 2 bedroom apartment.  We had a short list: dishwasher, washer and dryer, garbage disposal, pets ok, and 2 bedrooms.  We managed to get all of these things in the smallest possible square footage imaginable.  But we were young and in love and flush with the joys of cohabitating.  The only flaw was that we shared a furnace with the landlord, who had what he termed as a "workspace" in the basement.  It wouldn't be a big deal, though, because he wasn't there all the time. 

Except that he was. He was there all the time, nights, weekends. All. The. Time.  And guess what? He had control over the thermostat. Which wasn't so bad in the summer, but in the winter our apartment was about 150 degrees, because I don't know if you know this but HEAT RISES. So he'd crank it up and we'd crank it down and scratch our heads.  We also scratched our heads at the heat bill.

There were other things too. He liked to smoke pot down there.  Like, often. He enjoyed frying fish. A lot of fish. Some evenings were both fish AND pot. And did I mention that we shared a ventilation system? Basically, we discovered over time, that we were living above our landlord's man cave.  It took us nine months to start looking for a place to buy. Unfortunately, what we finally ended up buying was a new home that's foundation was still a dream.  We weren't able to close on it until July of the next year. It felt like the house that would never be built.

This is all backstory, by the way. The other bit of backstory is that when we moved in to the place, the previous renter didn't clean the apartment, and he didn't have it cleaned before we moved in. He promised he'd "make it right" with our deposit when we moved out. 

So we FINALLY close, move all our stuff out, and rent a carpet cleaner.  I clean the carpets, but they're pretty dirty in a couple of places, mostly because there were only a few places where we could sit and put our feet.  I leave a message for the landlord about when I can get the deposit back.  I get a call from the landlord saying that the carpets were pretty dirty, and maybe I could just rent one of those carpet cleaners from Home Depot.  I explained to him that I had actually already done that, but he just kept saying "you know you can just rent them for the day at the Home Depot..."

I can clearly rent a carpet cleaner from Home Depot!

Eventually I got so frustrated I just told Mr. Bump to deal with him, because he was chicking me.  That's the term I just coined for when some asshole treats you like a girl and pats you on the head.  So maybe he won, because I threw up my hands after three rounds of I. RENTED. A. CARPET. CLEANER. ALREADY.  Mr. Bump's way of dealing with him was just to let it go. Let the deposit go, move on, concentrate on our beautiful brand new home and our new life together.  He let the pot-smoking, heat-jacking, fish-frying bastard go.  Can you guess that in some ways my husband and I are not at all like?

Well, he IS taller than me.

In case you're not keeping track, let me remind you that this was ten years ago.  Have I let it go?

My name is Mrs. Bump. You have my deposit. Prepare to die.

Mostly.

I tell you this story to illuminate an aspect of my character.  I will admit it's not actually one of my finer attributes, but I have a hard time letting things go. Like a pit bull whose teeth have been coated in super glue. Poor Mr. Bump just doesn't understand why I waste so much of my energy on something so CLEARLY not worth my energy.  I honestly can't help myself. I'd rather be able to shrug things off rather than obsess about them.  But I'm not wired that way.

I'm not wired this way, either.

The flip side of this aspect of my personality is that I can train for and run a marathon. I can lose 106 pounds. I can re-book a cancelled flight on a transatlantic cell phone call from an Icelandic backwater motel, despite being hung up on several times.  If you need help storming the castle, I'm your girl. 

Have fun baking without dairy! Think it'll taste good? It would take a miracle.

And seriously, if you need a vegan baked good, I will knock that shit out or die trying.  Just don't expect me to make you pot brownies.