If you follow me on facebook, you might have seen several references to a crazy woman living at my apartment. My living situation is a bit strange, where I’m only renting my room in this apartment, and not signing a lease for the whole thing with my roommates. So this means I only have legal authority over my room, and my landlady can place whomever she wants in the other empty rooms as she pleases. So I got back from Italy to find out that my landlady had moved an American woman in her late 40s into one of my apartment’s spare rooms. Things were a little crazy, and Dru and I weren’t certain why she was there, and it took us a while to figure it out.
This woman was telling Dru and myself one crazy story after another. She had been to x, y, and z. She studied every subject from a-z at said prestigious universities. She has advanced degrees in these things. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. She was a Congressional Page three times, one of those times as the personal page for the Speaker of the Senate. She was sailing around the world. She was kidnapped by Colombian pirates and tortured. She’s been living in France for five years. The list goes on and on. The point being, there’s too much for anything to make sense.
So this woman just seemed too strange for things to add up. I’ve lived with someone like this before during my stint as an RA so this was just déjà vu. I consulted with my program’s staff, who contacted my landlady to see just exactly what was going on. Apparently this woman lives on the 2nd floor of my building, and was sharing the common spaces of her apartment with a 70 year old British man. For whatever reason, this woman couldn’t handle it and because my apartment had available rooms, my landlady said she could move down here until the end of the month when the British guy was moving out so she could feel better. She’s paying for both rooms, though…so my landlady is really the winner in this. But regardless, here’s the kicker; my landlady then tells the woman from my program that apparently this American woman was kidnapped by Colombians and apparently she was tortured. Apparently my landlady saw her captain’s license and some sort of proof that this incident on the high seas took place. And apparently that’s why she’s crazy.
You might notice that I just said the word “apparently” a lot. You have to understand that this is not a story that I can believe until I actually see some proof for myself. I’m sure Colombians do kidnap people, but I just am finding it hard to believe that one of them is living in my apartment. Regardless of why she’s crazy, I’m still treating her the same way—with a good deal of caution. If this is really what happened and why she’s like this, I don’t want to be insensitive. But you have to understand my skepticism. It’s one hell of an awkward situation that I hope none of you will ever have to understand, how to find a balance between being nice to her and being freaked out as fuck. Strange things are happening in this apartment. Jars of unopened, cheapass jam are disappearing. Juice glasses and Tupperware are walking away. This woman makes no noise when she travels. I’m not one to use Harry Potter references, but it’s as if she apparates into the room. You turn around and she’s just there…staring at you. Staring into your soul.
But yeah…that’s her in a nutshell. We try to avoid conversation, because it gets on the crazy train real quick and then things get awkward. And she’s only here until the end of the month. And that’s almost here! Yay! Dru and I have had to celebrate someone moving out of this apartment twice already, and we’re going to celebrate this one too. We just have terrible luck.
As a disclaimer to any family members who might read this and worry, I am in no danger. This is just giving me some interesting stories that I’ll never forget. This is what can happen when you live in an apartment where you’re only renting a room and not the whole thing.
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