#21 Much Needed Vacation

I was on vacation in a tropical paradise, so I have not posted.  It was a much needed vacation.  (Allow me to turn into your dad for a moment; Gas is cheaper in Hawaii than it is in L.A.  It's a goddamn island, and it takes more effort to get gas there, yet it costs less than mainland Los Angeles? Ugh.)

Of course, this awful job would not allow me to transition into going on vacation easily.  It is a fully charged suck fest until the very last moment.

• Pigeon won't leave me alone because she is transferring units
• Bosh Bischer still parks in my building, so I had to hunt down his parking rent
• Some bitchy baby in an interior court unit was bitching about how she is going to call the fire marshall because she doesn't like her neighbor grilling as the smell gets into her place.  I told her that I don't bitch about the Chinese take-out place across the street that smells up my place when I open the window. 
• One tenant was out of town, and her hose busted on her patio, which flooded it, and leaked into the unit below.  

My shoes (on the table) got ruined, as my feet were underwater

It wasn't draining correctly, so there was a hole the size of an orange that I had to push all the water through, which spilled down into the alley.  It looked like this:

I was brooming water out for an hour

For the first day while I was on vacation, I kept hearing my baby monitor ringing.  I was so paranoid.  I had to remind myself that it was not in my possession, and I was on a fucking airplane. I needed to fucking relax.
It was a blissful four days, and then I come back to:

• Pigeon waking me up at 8am
• A bunch of emails from babies complaining about their neighbors being too loud 
• Jewel Arms complaining about how he scraped his truck in the garage because he's a terrible driver, like that shit is my fault
• I had an eviction the following morning, that also woke me up.  They were trying to move all their shit out before they got locked out, so their shit was all over the hallways.  This is also on the floor I live on.

Shit blocking the elevators

Shit blocking the stairwell.  Let's not leave all those Maxims, now.

Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to transition slowly back into this awful gig from vacation either.  It was more like a violent jolt back into this job.  I hate it so much.

#20 Pigeon III: More calls

So this JUST happened:

Pigeon: Mapple, you gotta tell that girl that lives down next to me to close her window.  She is walkin' 'round in a G-String.  It's a good thing the windows are too high for my son to see.  I got guests, and they all lookin' at that girl.
Me: Ok, I guess I can tell her to close her blinds when I see her
Pigeon: I know she gay.
Me: Oh?
Pigeon: Yeah, she got that girl living with her.
Me: I thought that was her roommate
Pigeon: No, that's her girlfriend.  I can hear them have sex all the time.  One of them is strappin' somethin' on.  

She's also developed into calling me for no reason.
Pigeon: Hey Mapple, you got some beautiful units up in this.
Me: Yeah, I guess. What are you talking about?
Pigeon: I saw that one you got vacant on the 10th floor.  It's bigger than mine, huh?
Me: No.  It's actually 200 square feet smaller than yours
Pigeon: Oh yeah?  It's got a nice view.
Me: Ok.  Is that it?
Pigeon: Yeah...

I decided to not answering her calls anymore because they are such a waste of time.  She tends to just talk and repeat.  She has no edit button.  I have saved this angry message she left.  This is verbatim:
"Mapple!  Can somebody call back, because all of a sudden  nobody ain't callin' my phone back when I leave messages in the leasing office and what not.  I need somebody to come up in here because the bathroom over flooded with water, and it got into the bedroom so I need the maintenance guy to come up here to mop...this morning...like ASAP.  Pigeon.  Bye."
She flooded her own bathroom, and wanted our maintenance dude to clean it up for her.  Fuck that.  I told him not to, but he did it anyway because he didn't want to hear her bitch.
I get that. 

#19 Security: Things Naseem Says

My favorite security guard, let's call him Naseem, is always full of stories.  He's the mid-afternoon/evening guard, and is the eyes and ears of this building.  He sits at the front desk and greets people, sees them come and go, chit-chats with them when they get their mail, helps them with anything...etc.  He's been here longer than I have, and knows the babies better.  When the babies cry to me, they are either complaining, want something, or are on their best behavior because they've done something wrong.   Naseem gets them for all the other times. 

Naseem: "Did you hear about that girl in 407?  That black girl with the hair?  She's a hooker.  I see her in the day, walk out in little shorts down the street and get picked up by cars.  She's prostituting...I know it."
Me: "You mean Jenny?  She's a student."
Naseem: "Yeah, but how she make money?  She's a street walker, that's how."

He also likes to show me things on the security camera.
"Look at this camera footage...you see that light speck?  That's a ghost.  I went into the basement, and I swear I saw a ghost.  Too many ghosts here!" 
"Did you see that guy letting his dog shit in the alley and not pick it up?  Watch this...look at me, you see me yelling at him, and he's cursing at me, but I make him pick it up. Stupid son-of-a-bitch."

Other things:

"Hey Mapple, did hear about Pearl in 115?  She prostitutes on the internet. These two ugly dudes came in asking for her, and I was suspicious, so I walked them to her door and she opens the door, sticks out her hand, they gave her money, and she let them in.  Those dudes were disgusting."

"That Pigeon...she beats her kid.  I know it.  That cute little kid.  I've heard him scream, "No, Mommy, don't!" and I feel really sorry for that poor kid.  She beats him, I KNOW it!  I bought him a Gameboy, he's a good kid"

"Hey, you know that Jeff in 1103?  He came up to me and asked me if could go to the hot tub area on the roof and watch him and his wife have sex.  He said his wife likes it when authority is watching.  I said no, that's sick, and the pool and hot tub area are closed at 10pm."

What's amusing is that he doesn't just tell this to me.  He'll tell anyone that walks by.  Naseem is like our building's gossip queen, know-it-all that works for the school 'zine, and thinks he'll grow up to be a journalist one day...but alas, he is a middle aged security guard in a stupid building full of assholes.

The Google Image search for "gossip" yields amusing stock photos