Installment Eleventy Million in The Slumlord Chronicles

[lapsedmodernist]

Earlier tonight, I am making newly purchased lapsung-souchong tea for myself and my roommates. Smoky. Soothing. Transitional-to-winter. I go to get something out of my room, and when I emerge, I see a dense mass descending down the stairs that leads to/from the roof opening. Still a little jumpy from our adventure the other night when we had some guests of the NYPD variety over at 5 in the morning, I ask "who is that?"

"This is John Q, I was up on the roof receiving alien transmissions," replies the voice of The Slumlord. "If you have holes in your day, and don't remember what you were doing for hours and hours, you may have been kidnapped by aliens for their experiments." [sidebar: the logorrhea/bricolage offering from The Slumlord's lips is brought to you, as usual, verbatum; there is a Russian expression for people like him, well there are many, but this particular one would translate to say "there is porridge in his head."] Then he proceeds to enter our living room, once again proving that a vampire is preferable to him, because the vampire would, at least, require an invitation to be able to enter. I use this as an opportunity to push the case for switching my door, using the assessment of the representatives of our local NYPD to back me. No luck . The Slumlord asks J.Mu if she heard my door rattling; J.Mu responds that it does not matter if she heard it, what matters is that I heard it. The Slumlord ponders this, and then announces that I hallucinated the door rattling.

SEIZURE SEIZURE SEIZURE.

ME: Slumlord, I did NOT hallucinate it, and will you PLEASE change my door, you PROMISED that you would do it before the end of the summer; it's November; I'd like to feel safe in my room.
SLUMLORD: Nothing is safe, anthrochica
ME: Um. Nevertheless, I'd like it if my door didn't have, you know, gaps in it.
SLUMLORD: Even if I change the door, any door in this apartment can be kicked in easily. If someone wants to get in, anthrochica, they will get in.
ME: you are really not doing anything for my feeling of personal safety.
SLUMLORD: That's why you got the gate. You wanted that gate, and you got the gate.
ME: EVERYONE wanted the gate.
SLUMLORD: yeah, yeah, yeah.
ME: will you please change my door?
SLUMLORD: I don't have the time.
ME: I am not asking you to do it this second, but will you please give me some sort of time frame?
SLUMLORD: anthrochica, I promise I will do it at some point during the next 2 years.

SEIUZURE SEIZURE SEIZURE

J.MU (jumping in): Slumlord, how about the new stove and fridge that you promised us? Maybe we could get the new stove before Thanksgiving? So we can bake something?
SLUMLORD (gazing adoringly at J.Mu): Sure thing girls, sure thing. I just don't want fighting over who has to clean up the debris that will appear once the old stove is removed. You will all refuse to clean it because you will say it has been there since the tenants before you. Hell, you will probably find some tenants from before under that stove.
ALL OF US, IN UNISON: we'll clean it.
SLUMLORD: because I know you are not going to clean it, and I won't hear the end of it, and I bet it's really dirty under there, and you just sort out who is going to clean it before I put a new one in and...

SEIZURE SEIZURE SEIZURE

SLUMLORD (to the mono-ridden constintina: How are you feeling?
CONSTINTINA: I feel like crap. I am going upstate tomorrow.
SLUMLORD: did you get that test I told you to get? About Lyme disease?
CONSTINTINA: I have MONO. I don't have Lyme disease. I haven't been out of the city or anywhere near nature in years.
SLUMLORD (in "scary badtime stories for delinquent children" tone): Because this girl, she didn't leave Brooklyn or anything, she just kept feeling worse and worse and the doctors were feeding her this crap about Epstein-Barrs and Mono, and turned out she had Lyme disease.
CONSTINTINA: But I...
ME to CONSTINTINA: nonverbal violent shaking of head, as in "Don't argue with the crazy Slumlord"
CONSTINTINA (resigned): Okay, I will talk to my doctor upstate about it.
SLUMLORD: You know, they have ticks upstate.
CONSTINTINA: yes, I know.
SLUMLORD: All kinds of deer and ticks. And ticks bite humans, for killing so many deers. It's...what do you call it...[LONG PAUSE]...what's the word?..RETRIBUTION

We stare. And stare. And stare.

SLUMLORD (channelling a line from a movie about a Good Landlord, like Santa Landlord, which under the circumstances redefines irony): You girls just let me know what your needs are, and I will take care of them.

LONG PAUSE

SLUMLORD: Well, the rat problem has been solved, hasn't it? anthrochica, are you sure it wasn't a rat rattling your door? Ha-ha-ha. Ho-ho-ho.

J.Mu (after he exits): I can't believe someone MARRIED him. And PROCREATED with him.

And then we drank tea, that went from boiling to warm, expending its energy on trying to escape from the superkettle and get the fuck away from the radius of The Slumlord's voice. Poor little tea. I feel your pain.

Comments

[constintina.livejournal.com]

I hope your readers understand that you never really do justice to the reality of Life With Slumlord. everything you chronicled here went on infinitely longer than the dialogue typed might lead one to believe.

Also you know when you really physically need to crack the fuck up and you can't? Like on that Beavis and Butthead where they have to go a day in school without laughing or they'll get expelled or whatever? That, for me, was tonight.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yup, it's true, the above exchange went on for about 50 minutes. and it's not even that I picked "the highlights"--imagine everything i wrote being repeated 18 times and interjected with some total nonsense in a very loud voice (Slumlord's). he just won't leave.

[3rdworldcinema.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAH

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

dude, when do you want to go see meg ryan cut up? wanna go thursday after work?

[3rdworldcinema.livejournal.com]

YES

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

excellent. has it been out for 2 weeks? cuz if so, i have coupons for Loews... either way, I'm gonna look up where it's playing...is 7/7.30-ish good?

whoa

[chelvis.livejournal.com]

lapsang-sochung is the stuff. They roast the leaves over burning pine wood.(?) that's just what I've heard.

Also, yesterday I go to sleep at 9:00 pm. I wake up sometime later, the light in the kitchen is on. I think to myslef "Oh shit, It's tuesday morning, and I've woken up already to hit the alarm, then went back to sleep, and now I've overslept. (I definitely felt as though I had woken-up, the gone back to sleep) I think: "Ok, shit, let me just get up! I'm well rested! I'm late for school!"
I run to the kitchen. It's Midnight. Yet it feels like I've slept for 10 hours. i go back to bed, though I'm not tired. and have i mentioned that I'm scared of aliens? I wake up sometime later. i don't know why. It's 4 am. I get up for good this time.

Re: whoa

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

i'm scared of aliens too. and when i sleep for 10 minutes, i feel like i slept for 10 hours. when i sleep for 10 hours i feel like i just fell asleep a minute ago. why is that, chelvis? WHY?

Re: whoa

[chelvis.livejournal.com]

i dunno. and I'm sure you've been tired, fallen asleep, then your MIND has woken up, but your body hasn't. And you're paralysed, you can't move, it's just your mind in your head, and it's scary as all hell. You try and make a sound, but you can't, you want to scream, but you barely make a whisper. That happens to lots of people, apparently, at least once in a while. It happens to me if I don't get enough sleep, then can't fall back asleep.

Re: whoa

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

uh-uh. that's sleep paralysis, something i've suffered from on and off for most of my life. it sucks. in some cultures it's called "night riding" implying that a witch flies into your room at night and sits on your chest and that creates that particular effect. i don't think it's the same thing as skewed or counterintuitive perception of time lapsing when you are asleep.

[klingrap.livejournal.com]

I must move in with you. I want to experience the joys of Slumlord in person.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

ew, not like that!

dial the peacock

[(Anonymous)]

ha ha ha. is it too late to switch and do a documentary about slumlord? or maybe a sitcom. must-see-tv!!

seltix