TKOG Who isn’t going to take it

Guys! I’m so excited by the response to the PO Box! I got lots of great comments and emails and, once I have a few days to make logistical calls, expect an email from me. If you don’t know what I’m talking about or aren’t sure if you might be interested (in using it, even if you don’t want to make a donation), then check it out here.

Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, check out a few split-second decisions that tempt me on a daily basis but would undoubtedly ruin my friggin’ life.

NTKOG #229: The kind of self-confident master of her own domain who is good enough, smart enough and, goddamnit, will tell off a jerk who has it coming.

I am: kind of on the meek side. One of those people who convulsively apologizes just for walking in your path or — heaven forfend! — accidentally breathing on you.

I am not: meek because of any great gentleness or sweet nature. Perish the thought. I usually just have a hard time realizing when I have the right to be angry.

The Scene: My apartment, at a quarter past eight, booking it for the bus to work. Because I’ve been waking up early to clean my apartment, I’d spent the past hour or so attacking all the nebulous to-recycle junkmail and magazines that had accumulated in every crevice of my apartment. So I was feeling mighty accomplished to bustle out the door, carrying two full trash bags of rejected papers.

On the way out, ran into my super. “What day is it?” he barked at me.

“Wednesday,” I chirped, positively seething virtue.

“And do you know what day the trash gets collected?” he demanded.

“Uhhh, Wednesday, I think?” Not even nine in the morning and already, in the eyes of the world, I was faltering.

As my super stared at me with scorn and pity, I swear I could see the blood floating up like lava lamp bubbles to the swollen anger-vein in his forehead.

“Then why are you putting your trash out now?! It’s already been picked up! What are you thinking of?!” As he lathered himself up to righteous wrath, he leaned his whole body into the doorway separating me from the staircase — and the world beyond, the one where I needed to get on a damn bus. And then he really launched into it.

A word about my landlord. Dude is, for starters, super-Soviet. And while he’s a generally nice man, because of some combination of my age and gender, he seems to assume my life is the epicenter of some moral depravity the depths of which he can’t even fathom. I mean, me! Sure, I may have cut a few lines of fleur-de-sel in the bathroom once but, dude, I donate to charity! I eat organic! I go to the library every friggin’ day.

Then again, this is the man who blames every broken thing in my apartment — from broken locks to leaky faucets to burned-out lightbulbs — on my “many gentleman visitors”. Like, heads-up, sir? The only man who’s been in my bed this year is PG Wodehouse. And seeing as how he’s been dead for forty years, something tells me he wouldn’t be too interested in my faucets, leaky or otherwise.

After the super had screamed “inconsiderate” twice, I put the garbage bags down and settled in for the long haul. When he started yelling so loudly that two neighbors poked their heads out the door to see what was going on, I pulled out my iPhone and hit the stopwatch.

Five minutes and thirty-eight seconds. For five-minutes and thirty-eight seconds, he accused me of being inconsiderate, ungrateful, lazy, a secret basement-hygiene saboteur.

Normal TKOG would have started apologizing ten seconds in and — in all honesty — probably be out on the street already. Sure, I did nothing wrong, but an apology is cheap and doesn’t hurt anyone. But, dude, is it so very wrong to admit when you’re not in the wrong?

Finally, when he’d reached the greatest swell of his rage, he paused for breath, and I cut in:

“Hey, you know how I pay rent every month? Well, if you want me to keep on doing that, you need to let me go right now so I can get to work.” He sputtered angrily, as I passed, then turned back: “And next time? You should probably calm the fuck down.”

The Verdict: Dude, I think that’s the first time in my life I’ve ever cursed at an actual (non-parent) adult. Crazy. Not that I’d do that part of it again, but the rest? Okay.

A coda to the story: a few days later, I ran into him in the foyer, and he apologized for losing his temper. And normal TKOG would be so thrilled by the spirit of reconciliation that she’d be practically heimleiching out all the apologies stuck in her throat. But stuck to my no-apologies rule.

“I understand and I accept your apology, but I think you’ll find I’m a reasonable person. Next time you want me to do something, please ask nicely.”

Frig yeah! No apologies! Not ever! Except, actually, still probably sometimes! Or even most of the time! But I think I’m going to make more of an effort to apologize when I’ve done something wrong, and not just continue my current path of ceaselessly apologizing just for being alive.

Tagged as: a week later my relations with my super are actually at an unprecedented level of warmth, apartment living, feeling bad for being alive, i'm good enough i'm smart enough and gosh darnit STOP YELLING AT ME, self-assertion, stuart smalley would be so proud he'd defrost me a sara lee pound cake, when people yell i always get ptsd flashbacks to the noise-triggered migraines i suffered sophomore year of college