APRIL 16, 2013
"This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man."
- President H.W. Bush, as quoted by The Dude in the movie The Big Lebowski
“Anywhere but there’d been good.” My neighbor motioned
toward my car with a closed hand full the same trash food that filled his
mouth, making his grumbled command irritate me all the more. After swallowing he pointed out the four
other spots on the block I should have intuitively known were better options to
park my car, for the spot on the public street
in front of his house he liked to keep clear.
At other times in my life I could see the point. When I lived in a fancy South Florida
neighborhood and drove a beat up Subaru with as many dents as window stickers I
could understand why you might not want to see it outside your front door next to your Bentley. Here, in a lower-middle class neighborhood of
North Clairemont, California where the street was littered with beat up work
trucks and trailers that haven’t moved since Arnold was Governor, I don’t see
why my clean new vehicle presented an issue.
This is the kind of agression I’ve been up against for the
last week. My short-term housing situation
has been a bigger disaster. Since
leaving college, here are some of the roommate situations I’ve had. You guess which one would be the biggest
problem and which one would be the most perfect fit.
1)
Sublet guy who smoked in my house
2)
Sublet raging alcoholic gay guy with three
almost house-broken dogs in my house
3)
Shared house with a cokehead/self described “bar
slut” female and a white supremacist male (swasktika tat and all)
4)
Duplex including yard shared with trust fund cokehead
who partied until sunrise almost daily, occasionally broke TVs like a rockstar,
and was on the registered sex offender list
5)
Aging hippie in an all-vegan house in the
suburbs
Guesses?
One through four worked out fine, though I have many
interesting stories to share. Number
five describes my last week and has completely sucked. Never before have I been so disrespected and
unwelcomed in a shared living situation.
There are a dozen little things that drove me insane in the first week
of living there, though I’ll spare you the details and insults she threw at
me. It was today that put me over the
edge.
After traveling without issue around numerous third world countries
including three well-documented malaria zones and countless sketchy hostels and
guest houses, I have recently involuntarily donated large
quantities of blood. To bedbugs.
It’s disgusting. My
body is covered in red dots and scales.
The best part? The homeowner is
blaming me for bringing them back from India.
Nevermind that I just spent ten days living in luxury in The Emirates followed by a
week staying in my childhood bedroom back in Detroit before coming here and that I never had
bedbugs before that. She’s certain I
brought them.
But geez ….if we only had an expert on the subject ….someone
who knew something about this topic ….someone to set the subject straight…
…like the guy living in the guesthouse in back who happens
to own and operate a pest inspection and control company! As it turns out, the little fahkers live the
walls. Surprise, surprise.
I packed my stuff and got out of there. It the second time in my life I’ve broke a
lease, abandoned my cash, and fled for safety.
The first time involved an “incident” that changed my opinion on the existence
of ghosts.
So here I am. In a
laundry mat. Despite the décor that is
more hip than most lounges in the Midwest and despite the $10.50 per load
pricing that can be paid with a credit card and despite all my other dirtbag
adventures, there is nothing that make me feel more like the broke white trash that
really I am than sitting in a laundry mat.
At the advice of the pest control guy I am washing and drying all my
clothing in the hottest water and the hottest air the commercial machines will put out to kill off any bugs that may have decided to hitch a ride out of the dirty hippie
home.
How mush of my training and racing
gear is being ruined by the heat right now …$200? $1,000?
I choose not to think about it.
Days like this make me wish I was still a big drinker.
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