shenanigans

Once again the computer appears to be cooperating, so here's one more for the road.

I seem to attract crazy people and crazy situations and general shenanigans. Meaning if it's unlikely to happen except once in a blue moon and it sort of defies reality with its weirdness, it will almost certainly happen to me.

A few mild examples (the crazier ones are just too crazy to believe): the first being that two years ago I got stuck hiding under a giant blanket on a really squishy couch (so that you couldn't tell anyone was there) because I was not, shall we say, having slept on that couch, dressed for guests. Anyway I was stuck because when I woke up there was a cable repair guy in my living room (no one else home but me) and I wasn't wearing pants. The kicker is that I had to be at work at 9, it was 830, and I laid there without moving for forty minutes while he worked (and it was hot, oh man), praying the alarm wouldn't go off so he wouldn't know I was there. Such is the sketchiness of our old neighborhood. Anyway the great part is that I didn't get in trouble for being late to work because how often does something like that happen?

Well, let me tell you how often. They're doing work on the side of our bloc right now. When I got back into Bucuresti, I saw that my blinds had been closed and remembered. But I opened them the next morning, and the following night I got back really late and just kind of collapsed into bed without thinking. So come 8 the next morning, I wake up because I hear someone knocking. Most of the time, as with this time, I sleep completely under the covers, including my head, so I peeked my head out to see if my roommate was knocking on the door. But instead I saw: a man standing outside my fourth floor window knocking on it. Which took a second to register. Because we're four floors up. But then I remembered the scaffolding, somehow managed to get out of bed with every blanket on it wrapped around me and shut all the blinds. Meanwhile homeboy outside is telling me he needs our electricity. Exit room. Roommate laughs at me. She already knows about these shenanigans and their frequent occurrence.

Then today I was in my room packing when all of a sudden I heard our front door open and close really really quietly. So I went to investigate, and there in the kitchen is my eighty-some year old neighbor, half her body leaned out the window. So I said buna ziua and she told me she was looking at what all the workers had done (she has a key). She then informed me she needed an onion, where were they, and I told her I wasn't sure we had any but they'd probably be in the kitchen closet. So next thing I know she is practically crawling around rummaging through all the stuff on the bottom. And I'm thinking, is she even gonna be able to get up?? But sure enough, she found the single onion hidden who-knows-where and shuffled back to the door, and as I told her I hoped she had a good day, she saw my feet. My bare feet on the kitchen floor.

Something about Romanians for those who don't know: they like to wear papuci, which are slippers or flip flops, and anyway you don't want to get caught (especially by older people) walking around barefoot. But I've always run around without shoes and can't seem to break the habit, especially in summer. And so began a scolding of righteousness and what could I do except put flip flops on immediately and say that I won't forget again. But she kept grabbing her stomach and then I realized she was telling me I was going to get a cold in my ovaries. Another thing you should know if you don't: here it is said that if you sit on a cold surface and you have lady parts, they will catch a cold (raceala) so you should never do that. Find a chair or something or stand. But I didn't realize that it was for being barefoot too. She's a nice enough old lady though, and I'm assuming that, like the guard in the park who told me to go home because I was sitting in the sun and it was strong, she was just looking out for me and my future babies.

Anyway, shenanigous. So it goes.