Apologies to all regular readers here who miss the goyem Woody Allen persona professing exasperation over his two left feet. I’m in a comedy null zone these days. Y?
<>I learned last week there was not enough in the bank for my loan payment to be made, and I am in high funk over this. Bank notices from last week re that and probably a bouncing check remain unopened on a bookshelf near the front door. Opening them today would be like swearing off smoking after noticing a wing has just parted company with your Piper Cub during a flight through major clear air turbulence. You know that even though cigarettes are bad for your health, nothing you can do for the benefit of your lungs matters, given the import of prevailing circumstances. You’re just going to have to fold your hands over your chest and savor the thrilling descent.
Here’s a matter which, by no stretch of the imahination, is comedy or gravity 99 percent of the time. During this one percent null zone, it’s a diversion. The person renting the upstairs has been the best hummin’ bean to write rent checks to moi since I purchased this duplex 16 years ago. She’s been here three years, and we’ve been simpatico from the get-go. For the past eight months or so, the fine woman who always turned the lights out in the basement when she departed after putting a load of laundry into the machine, or returning a load to her quarters upstairs . . . . . has been leaving the lights on.Why should I give a rat’s patoot? The power used to illuminate the lights (and run the worsherindraar (as #43 might say) is billed to me. She pays for the juice powering her living quarters. Over the past eight months probably once every month or so, I’ve asked her to turn off the lights when she leaves She has a separate door which I unlock when she calls and asks me to unlock it from my inside. Sometimes she complies for half a day; sometimes not at all.
After — by the grace of Yahweh — I was loaned money which permitted me to replace the central air units used to cool her place, my bank payments increased $75 a month! I don’t know what other owners would have done. Some would have increased the rent to deal with the expense.
Here’s where the child-parent dynamic comes into play. . . . . any successful, employed owner would more easily have done what I felt was fair to do: increase the rent by $50 a month and if she balks when the lease is due for renewal, go our separate ways. The lease is due for renwal in August. If she does not give me 30 days’ notice to vacate on Aug 1, I can count on her until next August 1. There’s also the possibility that a person who cares so little for my electricity is going to leave when she damn well wants to heave.
Did you ever find yourself at age 11 or 14 years old, just aching over the ignominy of having to get along with Mom and Dad because if you don’t, you could spend the rest of your life in your fripping bedroom? I did. Now, I, home owner and out of work Texan spin Libra, am in a similar dilemma over WHAT?
Over paying to keep the frikking lights on in the basement up to 10 hours longer than they should be two or three days a week.
Motion detectors attached to the basement ceiling lights are the obvious solution. I might as easily buy wings for pigs, at least until a rent check comes in August 1. In the meantime, I replaced the 75 Watt bulb over the washer and dryer with a 25 Watt bulb. I will explain to her how I was silly to expect her to pay attention to what is beyond her concern, and that I will turn the lights off when I know she’s not in the basement. Yes, it looks like I’m getting ready to shoot myself in the foot, bigtime. Keep your fingers crossed that she doesn’t care about the reduced Wattage bulb and that she pays her rent, sans notice to vacate in about a week.
In the meantime, I’ve decided not to light that cigarette. I don’t know that I’ll enjoy any better the thrilling view that decorate my kinetic horizon, but I’ve always believed it’s not the destination that’s important; it’s how you get there.
Live long . . . . . and proper.
