Odd irritations.

I really don't mind adults. Honestly. On the whole there are many other groups of people that I dislike more. Teenagers. Typical drama kids. People from New Jersey. Etcetera.

Let me stop for a moment and address the fact that I am, in theory, an adult. Okay, yes. I'm twenty-one. But...shut up. I'm talking about adult adults. Liiiike...let's say thirty-five to fifty-five is my age-range for the purposes of this entry. That age group represents to me this sort of distant, uninvolved group of people going about their lives with pretty much no input or disturbances from me. They have full-time jobs, they have health insurance, maybe they have children. They're perhaps the same age or a little younger than my and my friends' parents, or my professors at school, but, having just moved forward into this large and terrible world known as adulthood, myself, it's a group with which I was anticipating low interactions.

Enter Natalya. Natalya is the newest roommate in this massive sublet grundlefuck that I've become a part of. I use that word because, currently, no original member of the apartment lives here. Now it's just four ignorant subletters who don't know where the garbage goes, can't fit all our food in the overpacked refrigerator, and, because we haven't yet found a ladder, are unable to change the three overhead lights that have now gone out. But we're doing the best we can. Except Specimen Three. He is NOT doing the best he can. I know this because the sink is still full of dishes and my soul is still full of resentment.

But anyway. Natalya is Allyson's sublet, from home, I guess, and she's eighteen. Which I didn't even give a second thought when Allyson told me, except that she goes, "Don't freak out, but she's eighteen. But she's one of those old eighteen year olds. She totally doesn't seem eighteen! It should be totally fine. Don't even worry about it."

Hmmmm...

You should all know that sentences beginning with "Don't freak out, BUT..." are not sentences that should be directed at me. This is because I am an insane person. Not only am I perfectly capable of freaking out on my own, but I will in fact do it commonly even when it's entirely uncalled for. So when I'm told as a preemptive measure NOT to freak out, I become instantly suspicious. And...in essence...freak out. And there's logic behind this, too. If you're telling me NOT to do something, it obviously means that in some place in your mind you're worried that I might do it. Which theoretically makes my reaction justified. Hence the suspicion. (Also I'm crazy.) ANYWAY. I hear these words and am automatically suspicious of this totally-not-eighteen-seeming-eighteen year old about to come into my life.

So I meet her in passing one time last week when she was stopping in to pick up some stuff -- I guess she's been staying with her boyfriend for awhile because it's convenient, and didn't officially move in here until last night -- and she seems very nice, totally normal. Anyway, I'm sitting on the couch around eleven last night with Mark and Joel, who were over, and there's a commotion at the bottom of the stairs, and up clatter this girl and her mom. And I say hello to her, and her mom emerges from the stairwell behind her and surveys the room and introduces herself. I don't remember her name -- I'll call her Venya, I don't know why -- but I do remember that after I introduced myself she looked pointedly at Joel and Mark and said...and you all...live...here? And then after I explained who they were, she looked pointedly at our wineglasses instead. Because, yes, I can't wait 'til you turn your back and I can begin corrupting your daughter with Trader Joe's three buck chuck.

So far this is normalish behavior...she was getting her daughter moved in, wanted to see who we were, etcetera. The only thing odd about it was that it was a little late or whatever. So at this point Venya decides she wants to take a shower. Ooookay, fine with me. So she comes into the living room and says, "Are there any extra towels? My daughter only has one and I don't want to use it." Are there extra towels? I don't know? I mean I'd assume not...this isn't a guest house. Poor twenty-somethings live here. And they don't even LIVE here right now. I live here. And you're not getting my towel.

So I told her, "I'm sorry, no, I don't think so."
"No one has any extra towels...?"
"No...I'm sorry...I don't even live here. I'm subletting, too."
"Oh. Okay..." (Insert really doubtful look and an embarrassed wince. Embarrassment for ME, not for herself.)

Woman, if you think I'm about to walk in my room and hand you a towel that I use not only on my body but also to wipe up minor spills on my floor between washings, you have got another think coming.

I'm sorry, adult lady! We don't have a linen closet! We hardly even have a closet! A fact that I didn't feel bad about until you came adulting around here and scowling at the stains on the carpet. Stains I did not even make but suddenly feel obliged to apologize for!

So obviously, something about this woman being in the house really put me on edge and I don't know why. I mean, yeah, I guess I do know why. Because the life that we have here is one of common agreement -- this is just temporary. We stay out of each others' way, we don't have, like, sitdown dinner parties or a guest bedroom. Each of us has exactly what we need, and sometimes not even that. Forget about extra towels, m'lady: you're lucky we even have toilet paper.

And for some reason that I've not yet figured out, she didn't even LEAVE after her shower. She slept in that room somewhere. With her really-mature-for-eighteen daughter. And then this morning they had a nice mother-daughter chat at 8:00am in the living room separated from my bedroom by five feet and some flimsy French doors. Which of course woke me up, but I was able to lie in wait until they left. Thinking that she was gone for good.

BUT NO. She came BACK again tonight! And took another shower -- god knows what towels she used, but she didn't ask for mine -- and the two of them are now secreted back in that room again for the second night in a row! That's weird, right?

Oh! And before she disappears tonight, she goes to the shared pantry -- we each have a shelf -- and goes, "I guess there's not much food in the house." WELL NO. There wouldn't be, would there. Because food costs money...we don't have, like, extra heaps of fresh fruit and vegetables and big sides of fresh meat lying around. It was like she was getting ready to whip up a supper for herself and her daughter, and she was surprised that we didn't have the ingredients. Not many casseroles call for Easy Mac and peanut butter. (A fact I'm sure someone is hard at work on.)

It just really irked me that she was going through our things, judging our lifestyle. I felt like all of a sudden I had to answer to somebody -- explain why I had friends over, what I was watching, why I was having a glass of wine.

And the weird thing is, these probably weren't even things she was thinking -- I mean, she was definitely judging the living conditions, that much was obvious -- but I don't know this woman, what do I care? I shouldn't. It was just my weirdo reaction to having a foreign adult in my living space. A space that's partly appealing just because of how un-adult it is. If I don't have work, sometimes I hand around all day in my pajamas, yeah. And I'm re-reading Harry Potter, YEAH, and sometimes I leave my clothes on the floor of my room, YEAHHHHH.

Part of me wickedly hopes the toilet paper runs out, because I'm the one who's been refilling it and I'd love to see her reaction. That's from the same wicked part that wants her to come across a cockroach as well. Put things in a little perspective.

What an odd reaction to a perfectly innocuous woman.