Lefty & Righty call the Landlord *Dark Humor*

They Won’t Leave Me Alone ~Cancer, Baby

You find ways to deal with the upset. Even if you don’t want to, your mind finds ways to help you deal with the upset on most occasions. In the above referenced story, a woman who had ovarian cancer wrote about her organs as if they were personalities. Reading it before my diagnosis, I found it darkly humorous. Reading it after my diagnosis, I found it remarkably true. I know it’s not easy to laugh at a story like that especially when it rings of deep truth. But you have to find ways to laugh.

I was speaking with my Australian friend this morning and again found myself relating my incidents to the story Cancer baby wrote. I joked half heartedly about making my own story, of the organs Lefty and Righty who live in their apartment complex, and have just gotten a new Neighbor Mr. Cancer. I think perhaps I will write it, even just for my own laugh. So here in a testament to Cancer, baby’s post above, is my own story (hopefully humorous) about the neighbor that just won’t leave.

~*~

I am the landlord of a very precious property. Much more expensive than the esteemed Boardwalk in the game Monopoly, my property is highly prized for its uniqueness. However as we see unfolding here, my property has a small secret. This secret that the surprised tenants discover is that they are not owners in the property much as they like to believe as such having lived there for nearly 35 years, but they are renters and at any given time strangers can and do move in.

Two of my eldest tenants Mrs Lefty and Mrs Righty have been with me from the start. As it turns out even though they are from different sides of the street (so to speak) each having their own distinct and unique purpose, they still were comfortable with each other from the very moment they moved in. They immediately gravitated towards friendship like a pollen bee does to a flower. Once they were strangers. However, now after 34 years, they have become the best of friends throwing parties and joining in their tasks together performing them with great zeal and vigor.

Rooming only one hallway apart from each other, they were able to frequently keep in touch with each other oblivious to the empty apartment in between their hallways. One day unknown to me, a new tenant had snuck in and was working on taking up residence there. His name was Mr. Cancer and while his presence at first was undetected, now he was a bonafide tenant of the property. I knew this would be a problem at some point and I prayed for this to pass over, prayed that somehow he would leave before being detected by the two “twins”. But my prayers went unanswered when I received a panicked call about this late this Sunday eve.

I answered on the third ring:

“Hello?”

“Hi Landlord! This is Lefty calling…” She didn’t wait for a response but started talking all at once “I’m calling about the new neighbor? You know the one you let move in, Mr. Cancer?”

“Yes” I replied waiting for the next one.

“Well” she continued “I just want you to know he’s a horrible tenant! He’s always throwing parties, and trashing the place! Why just the other day I saw him tearing apart the wallpaper in the hallway and replacing it with his own “Version” of it”. She spit the word Version out as if it were a foul taste that had suddenly entered her mouth.

“And well, I just want him to stop and go away… Can’t we evict him?” She sounded petulant, half begging, half whining. I sighed with tiredness. I had half expected this, but I truly wasn’t 100% sure she would be the first to call. I thought for sure Righty would, seeing as she was always the outspoken one, the one to make the most noise at the first sign of trouble. I was as I found out not to be disappointed in that thought either...

I heard an audible click and I knew I had suffered another three way phone call attack. They had obviously been planning this phone call with the perfect timing so they could both speak tome at once.

“Hi, this is Righty, I’m here too and I just have to say your choice in tenants with Mr. Cancer leaves a lot to be desired. He’s always knocking on our doors really late at night. It’s gotten quite frightening.”

“I understand Righty but I can’t just ask him to leave, it’s not like he’s a guest here, he has found a home too. Trust me I understand what you mean but I just can’t do a thing about it”. I pleaded with them as the exhaustion over this conversation set in deeper.

Lefty chimed in again whispering her words “Well I suppose then if we can’t feel safe in our own home, we’ll just have to consider leaving the premises then.” And Righty followed suit offering her own words too.

“Yes, indeed, after the 34 nearly 35 years we’ve been together our anniversary being a mere two days away, I’m surprised that you aren’t doing everything you can to rid us of this menace known as Mr. Cancer.” The words came faster and faster and her voice increased in volume with each word uttered as the REAL reason for the call became evident. “I’m afraid we are left with no other option than to provide you with our notice of termination of lease effective today. We will be moving out on 10-9 promptly by the afternoon.” And with that I heard one phone hang up. I stood quietly waiting for the remaining party, Lefty to speak.

True to her form after a short pause, she was apologetic “I really am sorry but with a stranger like that invading our home and knocking on our doors at all hours of the night, I just don’t know what else to do. We would love to stay but we just can’t, his parties and trashing the place are really lowering the property value here. You must understand.”

“I do” I said, as I sighed resigned to the loss of my two eldest tenants.

“Well, don’t worry about Righty, she’s just PMS’ing right now, she didn’t mean to be all dramatic about what she said. I personally hope you’ll be well. I know you won’t miss our dramas and sagas that we have made you suffer through from time to time. Please understand it’s not you we are angry with, it’s Mr. Cancer and your inability to do anything about his presence.”

“I know” I said.

“Well then take care.” And with that she hung up.

I hung up the phone and headed not to work as I had expected, but straight to the bathroom instead for a nice long soak away from the world of Drama Queens and Mr. Cancer.

~*~

Not my best, but well it definitely puts a new spin on things eh? I’ll post again later.