quote:Originally posted by mart: He let her use his phone. That's help, isn't it? Sort of.
Well, holding a door open for someone is help too but it's not exactly a cure for mental incapacity. That just sounded like a story where a mentally unstable person wanted to use the phone twice and the surrounding neighbourhood called the police. At midnight. The witching hour for gods sake.
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I had a good one last night. It was press night at the theatre, so it was well busy, and I picked up my comp ticket at the press counter, along with the associate director and her fella, and we then tried to make ourt way through the crowds to get to the bar before the show started.
There was some fucking kids' choir in our path, with people watching, and there were lots of people with buckets collecting cash for charity. I got to a point through the crowd where I could then really quicken my pace and just walk past the choir, and onwards to the bar. As I stepped it up, a woman half blocked my path, raised a bucket of money in her hand, fixed my gaze and said "excuse me... -"
Now, the show is A Christmas Carol. A morality story about generosity, kindheartedness, good will, helping others...
So when she said "excuse me -" and fixed me with her steely charity gaze, I said "NO, IN A RUSH SORRY", didn't give her any money, and hurried on to get my drink.
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I've told you all about the neighbour across the hall (in our old flat) who knocked one night asking for help, pleaded with me to show me what she'd done. I cagily followed her into her lounge where I saw a gutted sofa with a dozen carving knives sticking out of it?
- woman is renting a single room, having been booted out by her husband.
- For a few hours she gets to see her son.
- At the end of the evening 'dad', who is supposed to have picked her son up, doesn't arrive.
- woman starts getting distressed. It's getting late, there's nowhere for the boy to sleep in the room she's been reduced to renting, and to top it all off the phone doesn't work.
- bit frantic now. Where is dad? Feeling guilty about keeping son up on a school night. Why is life so hard?
- OK going to have to reach out for some help here. Knocks on a door.
- No answer. Five minutes later the police arrive. "Can you at least call my husband? Please? There's nowhere for me and my son to both sleep." "Sorry ma'am you're going to have to go back inside. Just go inside."
- No sign of husband.
- Despite humilition earlier, really need to get in touch. Perhaps something has happened. Swallow pride, try another door.
- Make phone call. Husband makes a fuss. Christ this is embarrassing.
- Still no sign of husband
- Please can I phone him again? More promises.
- No sign of husband
- Really sorry abou- oh. You've called the police too. Right. This is the worst night of my life.
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You see benway. It's a dark path this not doing anything nice for someone lark. Soon I'll be calling the police on the desperate and refusing to move my car in the daytime for my neighbours.
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What about your bins, Mikee? Are they still a source of conflict and social unrest? I was just thinking about them, for some reason.
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Hey, you know, I think I've won the bin war. The bins are usually shunted further right than necessary, but they do spend a lot of time mostly in the excellent position and the rare pyramid shape is mostly a forgotten dream.
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I sidled back to the safety of my own flat and phoned the Samaritans on her behalf. The Samaritan was fucking useless, he thought I was talking coyly about myself... "What should I do if, say, a neighbour was having a sort of... breakdown?" "You can tell me anything, sir, I'm not here to judge you." "Yeah, great, but, what should I do if my neighbour is frantic and they've chopped up their sofa?" "You've chopped up your sofa?" "No, my neighbour, my neighbour's chopped up her sofa!" "Have you taken any tablets?" "What are you talking about!? Why would I take tablets?!" "Calm down, sir. Remember, I'm here to help. No one's judging you." ... That sort of thing.
quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: So a timeline of this event...
- woman is renting a single room, having been booted out by her husband.
Not exactly. Husband obviously lived somewhere else. Woman wanted him to pick up the son for reasons she wouldn't disclose, but I suspect it was probably in order to have some private time with a new paramour in the rented room she otherwise was sharing with her teenaged son.
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: "No, my neighbour, my neighbour's chopped up her sofa!"
Strangely enough, just this week I lent some of my tools (saw, drill, drill bits) to the boyfriend of one of rooster's colleagues because he needed to do exactly this. Apparently the back of the sofa was an inch too high to fit through the door into their apartment, so rather than replace the sofa he decided to take on the project and open up the upholstery, chop an inch off the wooden frame, and reupholster it.
I should also mention said sofa was purchased used off Craigslist for $25. Seems like it might have made more sense to sell it and buy a different sofa, but I guess I'm just not industrious enough. That's my problem, you know. Lack of motivation for needless projects.
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