The Kind of Girl Who … demands a fucking explanation

NTKOG #12: One of those brassy, argumentative vintage Ralph Nader types who will not stand for any slight or perceived injustice against themselves.

I am: kind of a doormat. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I stand up for myself when individuals attack me on a personal level (bastards!), and if there is a simple, impersonal way to deal with a situation (customer service call, filling out a webform, etc), I might do it, but this Mr. Smith isn’t the sort to go to Washington, is all I’m saying.

I am not: all that invested in most situations, is all. If something isn’t bothering me too much, I’m not going to argue for the fun of it.

The Scene: My apartment — oh my apartment — though gorgeous was lacking in a few key amenities: a functional living room light, a properly draining bathroom sink, and a back wall on the dish cabinet. It did, however, feature a gorgeous kitchen door barricade designed in a whimsically modernist style to represent a non-functional oven. Oh — oh that’s supposed to be my oven? What, the one I’m paying for? That I was told would be replaced by yesterday? Huh.

Seeing as how I’m supposed to be writing a novel this weekend (along with most of Canada) and do not actually own much cookware yet, this is not a big deal to me. Sure, technically the landlord and super promised to fix the light, sink and cabinet stuff by Wednesday, and the stove by Friday. But despite the fact I had seen neither hide nor hair of them since move-in, I just wasn’t that concerned. I’m sure they meant well. I’m sure it’ll get fixed eventually. I was prepared to shrug it off.

Then I thought about my sister, who is never shy or indiscreet about telling people where they can shove it. I thought about Justice, who, though fairly laid back and not one to cause a ruckus, would have sent a firm and polished follow-up email once it was clear that things had gone awry, or her boyfriend, Muscles, who would have made his point on the matter abundantly clear to said landlord before things even had a chance to go awry. Don’t let the landlord realize she can take advantage of you so early in the relationship, was the order of the day.

So I picked up my phone — shrugging off my hesitation about calling at dinnertime, and qualms that I have not exactly been the best tenant — and left a firm (and slightly fiery) voicemail on my landlord’s phone. “Look,” I basically told her, “I understand that the stove is taking longer than anticipated and that it’s a holiday weekend, but I need a basic timeline so I can plan my schedule and food needs accordingly. PS: FIX MY FUCKING SINK!”

She called me back about an hour later and tried to wiggle out of the whole deal. You said you didn’t mind going without a stove until it was fixed. Yeah, when I was told it would be fixed on Friday. Eating out is expensive! But we had no time to work on the apartment between the last tenant and you. You had the one minute between 11:59pm on Monday, when her lease ended, and 12:01am on Tuesday, when mine began. You wrote the damn lease that way. But you’re only living without a stove for a week! Um, from Sept. 1 to Sept. 10 is more than a week. It’s a third of the friggin’ month. Is how numbers work.

Finally, she admitted that the earliest she can do the stove is Thursday, but she’d send the super up to fix the other stuff today. As a fake attempt at compromise, she offered me the use of a stove in one of the empty apartments in the building until mine was fixed. I currently have no frying pans, no baking sheets, and no food that requires an oven or range to cook. I said yes.

“Really?!” she gogged. “Seriously? Well. You’ll have to talk to the super about unlocking it.”

The Verdict: True to her word, she sent the (very sweet) super and his wife up to my apartment quite early this morning to make the rest of the repairs, which they did quite admirably. The broken light in the living room, though, was sadly an electrical problem that we need to wait until Tuesday to fix. The super kept insisting that I accept the loan of a floor lamp from his own apartment while I am waiting, and despite my many attempts to refuse, he brought it up anyway, in that charmingly pushy Eastern European way. Later, he gave me the keys to a palatial empty three-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor that I can use for cooking until Thursday. Feeling guilty about making such a fuss in the first place, I ran out and bought a frying pan and some sausages to justify my fancy new squatter rights.

All in all, this one’s a bit of a wash: Taking the landlord to task definitely did get me results, but said results only ended up making me feel awkward, because I didn’t care much about the situation in the first place. I’ll keep this power in mind, but continue wielding it only when I’m actually invested in the results.