Plumb Dumb

A Letter to My Landlady:

Salutations Her Royal Majesty Vapid Nincompoop Odeur le Monkey Twat,

I beg Your Highness pardon my inquisition, but I feel the need to alleviate some pent-up stress in the throne’s direction due to M’lady’s incessant bungling in her self-appointed posts as Property Manager, Head Bimbo and Plunger Queen o’er our present domicile. My pedestrian and peasant manner, though justifiably unpleasant, is suitably, if not improperly, subservient in sarcastic tone beneath the spiked staccato heels of thy esteemed grandeur oh, Miss Royal Pain in the Ass.

However, methinks there’s something rotten in thy rule that mere eau de toilette cannot obscure. While the Queen is gallivanting about the countryside in search of copious amounts of peroxide to render her stubborn roots a holy golden glow to match her self-perceived halo, the peasants are revolting. Aye, her upward-turned nose knows well the scent of slum scum as all she deigns to proffer is an idle thought-box of Betty Crocker’s SuperMoist Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix – as evidenced by the colored drippings seeping through our plastered kitchen ceiling like beef au jous on sourdough bread.

Plight of the Plunger Queen

Sadly, we cannot use our culinary facilities to bake thy gracious gift, oh, benevolent one, for the oven is a cesspool and the countertop o’erflows with the evidence of thy goodness. However, “Let them eat cake!” sounds so sugary sweet from thy sacrosanct lips that I am hesitant about hastening to judgment and, perhaps, should dispense with verbally beheading you with my guillotine tongue.

Yet, ’tis nigh on Bastille Day and, dare I say, a pleasant holiday for peasants, everywhere, to remember that, en masse, we will have your cake and eat it, too. For them, I would stick out my neck. For you, I would suggest a titanium high-collar to match your high-brow manner.

Knowing that Your Highness cannot be trifled by the unsavory truffles of tenant’s toilet troubles – a distasteful dose of reality, notwithstanding – nor by my bellicose bombardment of bombast bursting upon thy furrowed brow, I shall refrain from further pretentious prose and, in layman’s terms, cut to the chase . . .

You are a vacuous fucktard. I have rarely been as annoyed by anyone so egregiously rude. Your blatant disregard for civility, proper communication and a person’s home and right to privacy are tantamount to fascist Homeland Security buffoons in both their sloth-like reaction to the problem as well as heinously poor execution in resolving the situation. Did you, perchance, work for FEMA Director Michael Brown during Hurricane Katrina or were you just sucking his dick? Because I gotta say, “You’re doing one heckuva job, lady.”

For the Record:

I called you February 5th to inform you of a leak in our kitchen ceiling, which was dripping brown water the color of Montezuma’s Revenge onto our stove top and counter, splattering all over the area to include our food, cooking utensils and floor. It made it impossible, that morning, to prepare food and – needless to say – ruined our meal and our appetite.

Your poor counter proposal is full of holes

Since my roommate and I have had a few toilet problems in the past, at this location, and had to deal with you, then, we are aware that you have certain issues surrounding tenants requesting assistance, however legal and appropriate. Perhaps it is just us that you condescend toward, but I doubt it. True, I haven’t bothered to ask my neighbors and your other tenants if you appear as a sanctimonious twit to them, as well.

Frankly, my time is too valuable to devise insipid surveys or participate in them. Subjecting my neighbors to this inane drivel is akin to Entertainment Weekly asking me if I approve of Britney Spears’ new bald look or tattoo, every time I click on a website. Who gives a fuck? And stop these cretinous pop-ups from inundating my monitor while I’m trying to read about the imminent demise of this planet due to the American Idolatry of brainless bimbos and bimbettes. For god’s sake, stop breeding.

Though this does cause me to wonder if, perhaps, you could be Britney Spears’ mother. Are you? That would explain a great deal. Your talents and bedside manner as a property manager are as appreciated and welcomed as Britney Spears’ would be should she become the Director of U.N. Humanitarian Aid to Darfur. Please, take your Pop Tart bourgeois efficacy and shove it up your ass toaster.

Having built my own home, before, and helped in the construction, remodeling and maintenance of several others, during the course of my life, I feel I have the experience, knowledge and common sense to properly assess a home-repair situation. I offered you this learned diagnosis when I described the leak as occurring after showering, that morning, and severe enough to warrant immediate attention. A vision of the whole ceiling caving in flashed before me, if left unattended.

You said, “Oh, it happens all the time!”

Please define “all the time,” for I’ve lived here over a year, now, and it just occurred. Over the phone, I can hear your nose snurling upward like the end of a ski-jump on some Alpine slope – cold, hard and distant.

“The bathtub needs re-grouting, that’s all,” you chide derisively. “The water is just flowing down the tile and seeping in behind the tub.”

“It’s a lot of water and I don’t think . . . ,” I mutter in a vain attempt to inject logic into the conversation.

“Pish-posh. I’ll come over and re-grout it. I do it all the time,” you admonish me, again, with grouting, uh, grating schoolmarm charm.

Someone’s bun is wrapped a bit too tight, I think, but I say nothing. You’re the landlady and I will acquiesce to the powers you wield, though I use the term “lady,” loosely. Not to imply that you’ll straddle just anything, of course, but if Britney is your spawn, then Trailer Trash makes you hot, apparently.

Within the next 24-48 hours, you do as you say. I appreciate your rather prompt though misguided efforts to marginalize the problem, minimalize the financial impact to your bottom line and thoroughly traumatize the residents during the relief effort. You have a great career ahead of you with Haliburton, if you don’t mind moving to Iraq. Watch out for those exploding IUDs I keep reading about. I’d hate for your cunt to be blown to hell and back while you were busy raping the indigenous people.

Before your hard work of squeezing the tube of grout, which could have broken a nail, our “little” leak was intermittent, at best. Still, it appeared as though your re-caulking campaign won the hearts and minds of the fractured factions living in the troubled area. Sadly, three days later, the leak returned with the dripping regularity of grandpa’s nightly bathroom regimen, because his prostate’s the size of your hubris and he stupidly refuses to have it checked.

Not wanting to gloat and say, “I told you so,” though I would have loved to rub your nose in it, literally, I preferred to pass the torch of power and allow my roommate to wield the reins while dealing with your shining example of liberating force. To ensure that, for posterity’s sake, I am not misquoted, I believe I said to her, “That’s it, you deal with the bitch. I’m done.” Yes, I’m positive those were my exact words as I checked with my mufti and he granted me a fatwa to jihad your sorry ass.

Thus, reluctantly, my roommate called you, again, on February 9th to inform you that The Great Grouting Godsend was for naught. Like using duct tape and Plexiglas to thwart the evil-doers in the War on Terrorism, while the ports and portals of our fragile democracy remain unsecured over five years since 9/11, our kitchen ceiling continued to piss on our heads as symbolism of the futility in making polite offerings to the Rental Goddess.

She told you I would be available, that Friday, to wait for a plumber, but you obviously didn’t deem it worthy of emergency status. How admirably empathetic of you. More pathetic than peripatetic, your aloof detachment may simply be sheer ineptitude on a massive faux blonde scale. Pardon me, Your Highness, for thinking that our discomfort and inability to use our kitchen could possibly persuade you to alter your weekend plans or swallow your pride and admit that you’re not the all-knowing divine Shakti of rental properties.

Till this point, it was just some drips from the ceiling and not worthy of penning an Encyclopaedia of Scathing Vituperation, but what happened next nearly made me come unhinged, as it were. Fully six days after you were notified, again, of the plumbing problem, and the dripping continued – our professional relationship deteriorated.

Last Thursday, about 1 pm, I am sitting in sweats at my computer. Because I work the afternoon shift and am a bit of a night-owl, I don’t need to get ready to leave until noonish, normally. Besides, my roommate has a regular schedule and occupies the bathroom in the early morning hours. Unshaven, with bed head and comfortably in the sanctity of my room, I hear the front door open. Nothing unusual, since my roommate will, occasionally, come home for lunch.

Clicka-clacka, clicka-clacka, clicka-clacka . . .

The harsh tapping of stiletto heels on hardwood floors arrested my thought process and I noticed that I felt like something wasn’t quite right. The ratta-tapping footsteps came up the stairs and went into the bathroom – pausing. The door didn’t shut, the faucets weren’t turned, nor was the toilet flushed. As the clacka-clicking exited the bathroom and began to descend the stairs, it seemed unusual that my roommate wouldn’t shout out a “Hey,” at least. So, I called out her name and was stunned at the response.

“No, she’s not around,” replied a female voice that didn’t register, at first, till I realized that it was you, the landlady. I was too flabbergasted to even say anything, and the anger was rushing into my face, so I thought it appropriate to stay put and cool off inside my room.

When someone is so arrogantly or innocently oblivious, how do you approach them? You clattered about, downstairs, and began talking with someone; probably the plumber. I was fuming.

You had not bothered to call in advance and schedule a service appointment, you didn’t check to see if anyone was home and ask permission to intrude and you blatantly bound through the front door and up the stairs like a Tasmanian Devil of Turpitude. Considering the source, now, I am not surprised. I just sat quietly and stewed, trying to keep my mind on my work.

The clicka-clacka-chicka-tapping ascended the stairs, again, but a new sound accompanied you and I couldn’t make it out. As you rattled about the bathroom, again, I weighed whether to confront you or bite my tongue, just so the problem could be plumbed. My tongue is still sore, but I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it, anymore.

Suddenly, with no warning, no announcement, no nothing, you barge into my room, throwing the door back, and saunter in with a tape measure extended like a crusader’s lance in search of infidels. The surprise on your face at finding the room occupied is beyond comprehension, because you heard me call out my roommate’s name, moments ago, to which you answered me.

Are you the friggin’ goldfish of property managers that you can’t recall a conversation, albeit brief, from two minutes prior? Or did you confuse me with the voices in your head?

“Excuse me! But do you think you could contact me in advance before you come over?” I glared with no hint of pleasantry.

“But it’s an emergency,” you whined in peroxide tones of Andy Warhol kitsch.

“The emergency was last week,” I jabbed, unreservedly.

Your invader’s lance went limp and you appeared totally taken aback. The charge, failing to measure up, was drooping towards the floor in need of yohimbine. Still, you rallied and began calculating the location of the downstairs leak by measuring from my outside wall towards the bathroom. Why didn’t you just measure from inside the bathroom – a shorter distance to the bathroom wall, itself – which shares the common wall of the kitchen, below? This would have alleviated the need for you to invade my privacy.

You fucking moron.

“I have to take a shower, yet, and get ready for work,” I declared as you clacka-clicka-ticky-tackied back downstairs like a pitifully aged Barbie Doll trying to get out of range of my barbs.

Enough of this bullshit. You ruined my day. You interrupted my routine. You delayed in fixing the problem when it was first brought to your attention. You condescend towards me in your superior snotty fashion that is as attractive as lipstick on a pig.

By the time I had showered, your plumbing lackey and you – the Plumb & Dumber twins – were nowhere to be found, though the expected mess and tools remained in the kitchen. Unable to fix anything to eat for lunch or prepare a sandwich for later, I stormed out and went to a restaurant, downtown.

On Friday, the next day, I showered early and left, knowing that you and your minion would return to finish the job. Again, I couldn’t use the kitchen and had to eat out. Upon returning, that night, I noticed that the kitchen ceiling had been patched, but still needed some final sanding and re-painting. A note on the back of a business envelope that you had pilfered – Did you rifle our trash and do you even comprehend the negative legal implications of that? – was lying on the kitchen table.

Here is its transcription minus names: “XXXXXXX – plumbing fixed!!! XXXXX will be back Mon to put more pasta [I assume you mean plaster] on the drywall & Tues. to paint it.”

Saturday morning as my roommate was showering, I went downstairs to get something to eat and, as I softly padded down the steps, I heard the tell-tale dripping of an all-too-well-known house guest that will not leave. Turning the corner into the kitchen, I discover another mess of diahhreic proportions – and you’re giving me a severe case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The ceiling is leaking around the freshly cut square of not-so-drywall, now, and I gotta tell ya, “You’re doing one heckuva job, Brownie!”

Apparently, plumbing is over your head.

I recall the last time someone declared “Mission Accomplished” a tad prematurely. At least your handwritten note on my purloined envelope didn’t set you back the same amount as an aircraft carrier photo op. Then, again, we’ve not been in civil court, yet.

Here are my bullet-point demands due to your incompetence, which will be sent to you Certified:

• You will fix this problem, immediately, or you will hear from my attorney.
• You will never bother me, again, in any way shape or form.
• I don’t ever want to see you in my home, unless it’s burning down, in which you may stay.
• You will email and call me, as well as my roommate, before you ever come over.
• You will fucking knock.
• If you do not knock, I will treat you as any other trespasser.
• Someone will open the door for you. It probably won’t be me.
• If you are not polite and respectful of our home and privacy, it will get ugly.
• You will adjust our February rent to accommodate the two weeks of crap you’ve caused.
• You will pay for professional cleaning of our kitchen and all culinary accouterments.
• You will pay for the groceries lost and the meals we had to eat out, during this time.
• You will acknowledge all of this, immediately, or I shall escalate the matter.
• And you will apologize.

Like Bush, you should be impeached and forced to dwell in Gitmo – for years – without representation. Unlike their lame justification for the Iraq War, however, the burden of proof in our grievance has been met. The preponderance of evidence and witness against you ensures inevitable prosecution. Just for grins, though, we’ll have Cheney’s boys improvise a little on the water-boarding technique. Imagine being forced to sit – head back and mouth open – beneath a drippy ceiling that shits brown water for days.

Congratulations, you will forever be remembered as the W of property managers.

The Kat