Dot and Mars: You can't stop us, cause we like doing it

Mars and I are currently competing to see who hates their job the most.

Me? I’m working 14 hour days and have got way too much responsibility and am constantly stuffing up and ‘costing the company money’ and I’m just tired tired tired…

Anyway, I promised I’d post something. Luckily something strange happened to me on the weekend…

It was Saturday night and I was sitting at my kitchen table with the laptop happily reading Wikpedia ‘discussion’ pages when someone knocked on my kitchen window. Weird. I peered out into the dark and saw the face of our neighbour looking at me.

He said, 'Hello! Would you like to come over for a drink?'

I thought it would have been more polite to knock on our front door and ask, however our kitchen window does look straight out into his courtyard so I guess he couldn't help but see in and notice me. I was stumped as to how to reply. Blane was at the other end of the apartment and had heard our neighbour’s invitation. He was desperately shaking his head at me while mouthing, ‘No! No! No!’ However, I didn’t know how to say this to our neighbour without seeming rude and awkward, ie, ‘No, I’d rather sit here in my apartment, however you can continue to watch me through my kitchen window.’

So I said, ‘Yes.’ From an optimistic point of view it did seem like a good opportunity to stick-beak into his apartment.

I changed out of my pajamas and into jeans and a jumper and went next door to meet Enin the Hedge Fund Slave. He lives in an apartment three times bigger than my own, however I like to think it’s not that nicely furnished.

Enin and I sat in his courtyard drinking Bud Lights. I realized pretty quickly Enin was very drunk, however it was in a friendly gossipy way so it was kind of fun. I learnt from Enin the following information:

• The basement of our building is full of cockroaches. Enin has seen them for himself when he went down there once.
• After seeing the cockroaches Enin has been paying for an exterminator to visit the building once a month.
• Enin’s apartment does not have mice. (I told Enin that our apartment DOES have mice… Hopefully he’ll get the exterminator onto them too.)
• Enin pays three times as much rent than we do, but he thinks his apartment is ‘good value.’
• Enin’s girlfriend is French. She recently got laid-off from her job (with a year’s salary!!!), hence the reason lots of French people have been hanging out in their courtyard. Enin’s girlfriend is currently in France visiting her family, hence the reason Enin getting really drunk on his own in the backyard.

When Enin tried to go inside to get our second round of beers we realized we were locked out of his apartment. Enin had accidentally picked up his front door key instead of his back door key. I suggested we climb in through my kitchen window to escape. However before I knew it Enin had jumped the back fence into the building’s backyard behind us. A group of people were having a BBQ in this backyard, and I listened to Enin introducing himself and then politely asking if he might go through their apartment to get out onto the street. They were happy to oblige (in other words, they were happy to show him out of their apartment).

While I waited for Enin to run halfway around the block and back into our apartment, one of the neighbours from the BBQ popped his head over the fence.

‘Hello!’ He shouted when he saw me.

‘Um… hi.’

‘What’s your name? I’ve never met you before!’

‘I’m Dot.’

‘Hi! Nice to meet the neighbours at last!’ He was obviously much more drunk than Enin. Only, unlike Enin, this neighbour had a very sleazy vibe to him…

‘Oh, I don’t live here.’

‘Where DO you live?’ He was definitely leering.

‘In another apartment.’

‘Hey… smile!’ Before I knew it this guy had pulled out a camera and taken my photograph. At the exact moment the flash went off Enin burst back into the courtyard.

‘Hey!’ Enin shouted at the drunk neighbour, ‘You can’t just take someone’s photo like that!’

‘Hey!’ The neighbour replied, ‘You can’t just jump into someone’s backyard and run through their apartment!’

Good point.

So Enin and the other drunk neighbour yelled at each other for a bit, before deciding they were probably both in the wrong. I stood in the middle of the yelling wishing I could just go home.

Once the New York-style yelling stopped the neighbour offered Enin a peace-making beer. Enin said it was not necessary, however the neighbour insisted and placed the beer on the back fence. The neighbour then disappeared back to his BBQ. I took this opportunity to tell Enin that I must go home also. Enin was disappointed but resigned to the fact that the locking-out and yelling incident hadn’t made the best evening. I took my leave.

I think it is a rare and precious thing to meet your neighbour in New York. However, it's also slightly creepy. On Sunday I brought a plant to sit on my kitchen window sill. Hopefully this should block peeping-Enin a bit.

Meanwhile...

The view from my bedroom window is beer... just... out... of... reach...