Thursday, September 10, 2009

A Tree Falls in Brooklyn

Since the playgroup has morphed into a school as of Tuesday, I decided yesterday to have a conversation with Basement Lady. Basically, I asked her to provide me a time frame for when the children would be outside; I figure this way we all have a schedule and can amicably work around each other. She told me a one-hour slot, and although the time was probably the worst hour of the entire workday for me, I decided that for the time being, it would have to do. After all, if it wound up being a problem, we would just have to converse a bit further, right?

However today, the hour wound up being an hour and a half. And while I understand that with children you can't be exact, it was too much already. To come out 15 minutes before the agreed-upon time? Fine. To extend past the allotted cut off point? Not cool. So I had no recourse but to take the loathed route, and call down to get her attention.

In typical Flatbush fashion, the assistant made out like I was from Mars by responding with the anticipated "But they're children". To which I mentioned that we're all trying to make some parnassah here- at which point Basement Lady conveniently became available and took over the conversation. Yet she also seems to speak Brooklynese also, because our conversation consisted of her repeating that she had given me a time, and me trying to point out (without actually saying the words in an effort to remain civil) that the time frame had been over for a nice while already. Much to my relief, she wound up taking the children in shortly thereafter, and I was able to proceed with job hunting calls I had been waiting to make.

While I know that the whole situation is pointless and I really need to just move already, I still felt lousy about the "incident", because who wants to be on bad terms with another yid, especially in Elul? Sure, I'm fed up with being accommodating, especially when she seems to unwittingly take advantage of it. I just wish I didn't have to come across as the Nasty Upstairs Lady.

I suppose I'll have to simply suck it up for the time being, and hope that I can find work outside the house. Until I can eventually move, of course.

3 comments:

  1. Move already! Place next door to us is cheaper, a lot, with free utilities, though it is a basement.

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  2. Moshe, I think you and your dear wife just want me as a neighbour. How misguided, albeit flattering. :)

    Seriously though, I do think I'm finally ready to admit that enough is enough. Problem is, I still can't figure out if I'm staying in New York or not. In the meantime though, I'm going to start collecting boxes, going through my stuff to see what to keep/give away, etc.

    How is the noise from the upstairs neighbours? Are they elephants, or relatively quiet? I don't mind a basement, as long as I don't have to deal with ka-thunk, ka-thunk all day long. That would just be a repeat of my current situation.

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  3. On weekends I think some noise, during the week, no. You can ask Vika.

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