Casting Call for the Crazies

It has been raining most of the week and I think the rain is flushing out all the crazies. This week I have been insulted by someone who doesn’t even speak English, my neighbor was dethroned, and I accidentally convinced someone he needs a brain scan. And that’s just the beginning of the story.

After a wonderful sabbatical I had from inanely meaningless conversations, I was plagued again by the prematurely white haired, dandelion head shaped, Mandarin only speaking lady.  Even though I look like I just licked a bitter toad every time I see her, she just dashes to me like a moth to a flame.

I was trying to gage the weather from the lobby of our crazy a$$ ghetto fabulous building and I was hunched over due to continued back pain. This disgruntled me so much that I looked like a turtle in need of a heavy dose of psyllium husk. Who waltzes in, but Dandelion Hair herself.

Again she pointed at my belly. Again she rubbed my belly. I’m going to start charging her because I think she thinks it’s good luck. Then instead of gesturing to tell me I need to work out, she mimed being pregnant and started to pat me on my back to congratulate me. I was mortified. I preferred the days when she told me in her own special way to run instead of taking the bus.

I shook my head violently to try to tell her no I was not pregnant, and it’s just probably due to bad posture and my raincoat being baggy. I was devastated especially because I thought not eating due to heartburn had helped me lose weight. Apparently, I was mistaken. She remained undaunted and reverted to her usual hand gestures about power walking. All this was accompanied by a running commentary in Mandarin.  I was relieved when the cranky elevator came and took her away.

Later in the week, I would have another run in with her, this time when I was brining home my four year old, Lanes, from preschool. I had a particularly hard time getting Lanes down the hill and we were both exhausted and the last thing I needed was comments on the breadth of my stomach or hips. Dandelion Hair beamed and rushed over to us as usual. I swear she must be hearing me grumble, but again she remains unfazed.

This time she pointed at Lanes and indicated that she was too thin. With all the wild gesturing my poor child grabbed my thigh and hid behind my ample rear because Dandelion Hair kept trying to pet her head.  I had to quickly nod and extricate ourselves before I was accused of eating Lanes’ food or something. With that she raced up the hill and we batted on with me swearing under my breath.

Later the same day, just when I had five minutes of quiet time before my long suffering spouse, P, got home from his temp job, my geriatric apartment management abhorring neighbor knocks on my door. She never comes in, but loves to have loud conversations outside the door. Meanwhile, I have to stand at attention.

I was tired and my back was sore, so I had to lean on the door and listen to her tirade for about twenty minutes (and our unwitting neighbors, if they were home, no doubt had no choice but to hear our conversation). She was going on about how all the commodes were exploding and that they needed to be cleaned. 

She had me at the word commode, or as she puts it, ‘throne’. She said they just spurt water upwards and she told me in detail how she was jet propelled off the potty one day. I had noticed the random gushes from the loo, but now I resort to solving problems in our unit with the ‘if I ignore it, it will go away’ policy.    I burst out laughing as I conjured up the image of her scowling and being hoisted in the air as she was unceremoniously dethroned by the faulty water pressure in our building.  

She told me that the apartment folks were bugging her to come in and clean her toilet and she had just taken her heart medicine and needed rest. Apparently because she felt harassed and couldn’t lie down her heartbeat went through the roof and the Fire Department had to come. How I missed out on this action was beyond me. And P, who considers me to be his own personal neighborhood watch.

Meanwhile, again in the lobby, I met the good natured yet dim witted maintenance man who always volunteers to help us fix stuff (but he invariably winds up messing something up and doubling our work). He had a gash on his head and claimed that the garage door shut on him!

I asked for details because P and I were having a debate as to whether or not the garage door will close if the front of the car is under it. I said it won’t wait for anything and P claims it has a sensor. Obviously, I was winning this argument (as usual).  Any old how I asked him if he went to a doctor and got a scan. His eyes lit up and he said he didn’t have a scan and what a good idea it was.

I didn’t realize I created a monster. The next time I saw him he said his head ‘it don’t feel so good. It’s going round round’. Now he is all gung ho about going in and is determined to get his cranium checked out. Oops. Oh well. He also thinks his brain is not working as well as it did before, and I just looked sadly at him because sweet as he is, it wasn’t really up to par to begin with.

Meanwhile, my nutty sister keeps calling me several times a day to insist that we get flu shots. She goes on and on like a broken record and she reminds me of the Spanish Inquisition form Monty Python. I can almost visualize her jumping out of the phone line with a metal pasta drainer on her head, pointing a wooden spatula at me accusingly and tauntingly.

She keeps going on about how people die from the flu and that we are doomed if we don’t go in for our shots. I kept growling at her and brushing away her concerns, but I was secretly in a flap over it. P is still coughing up a lung after two failed attempts to see a doctor. Lanes’ BFF has got hand foot mouth and so I’m waiting to see if we all pass the incubation period. I don’t think getting any shot right now is good if we were exposed to the virus, especially since her friend was in school when she had the fever and spots.

Also there is a clinic in mid-November that we are thinking of going to so all three of us can get our shots. I guess I like to harass myself because I have not thought to share this information with my over anxious sister, who is in constant fear of me kicking the bucket. Luckily after today’s post, my nieces will inform her or she can read it for herself (so crazy sister, stop bugging me!).

Asides from being plagued by my bevy of lunatics this week, I finally moved up in the world on one aspect. After one year and one month of not having a cell phone (apparently it is possible to survive without one), I finally got hooked up. I was rather attached to the phone I had back in the motherland and I was rather stubborn about using only that one and not getting a crappy contract bound phone from a service that would charge me for every breath I take.

P, in his meticulous way, researched strange things like band width and frequencies and found me a carrier that my phone was compatible to and before I knew it, I was connected (that was his birthday present to me). Sadly, my service is mostly limited to British Columbia, but at least in an emergency, I can contact P, and now I can have my sister and her one woman Spanish Inquisition when I’m on the go.

Next week the battle begins—Lanes has her swim class. I have to find a swimsuit. I wonder if I have to warn the public about it. Between my fear of water and fear of being caught in anything that reveals my limbs and belly, I don’t know how that’s going to go as P still refuses to set foot in water thanks to that Tibetan monk (see reference On Your Mark, Get Set…Gosh I Stubbed My Toe).

Maybe I should ask Dandelion Hair to go shopping with me. She will have me doing laps around the block in no time. Or I should take her to the pool. If she is out of it, nothing will get me in it faster. Meanwhile, I’m practicing giving P dirty looks, but he is rather good at deflecting them. Any guilt inducing suggestions are welcome. More excitement from BC next week…