Attack of the Ladybugs

Sometimes it's fun to be part of the day club. While you aren't making any money, you can go and do whatever you like, no one has control over you and there is no requirement that you have to be somewhere at a given time. Such was the case when two of my friends and myself decided to go hiking in the Sugarloaf Mountain area.

It was a beautiful fall day. The leaves were just starting to change colors, yet the day was still warm. We parked the car at the base of the mountain and began our hike. Unfortunately, mountains on the east coast are about as tall as a two story house, and thus, we were to the top of said, "mountain" five minutes after beginning the hike. However, there were several trails weaving in and out of each other across the forest, we chose one and were off.

After wandering around for about an hour, we came to an overlook where we could see the valley beneath us. What a scene it was! Partly because of the beauty, and partly because of our growling stomachs, we decided to eat the lunches that we had brought along. We sat down on top of an outcropping of white rocks, looking out at the beauty around us. It was then that we noticed a large swarm of bugs flying just past where we were sitting. At first, we were a bit confused as to what they were...but before long, we were actually covered in ladybugs. My friend was sitting there minding her own business, eating her lunch and then all of sudden we could count over one hundred lady bugs crawling up and down her clothes. I had never seen so many ladybugs in one place.

Soon, I too was covered in ladybugs, crawling here and there. It was about that time that my phone rang. Some friends were coming over for dinner that night and they were calling to confirm the time. Apparently, the ladybugs didn't like my moving around or talking on the phone because about halfway through the conversation I felt a sharp pain on my neck...

"Ow! A ladybug just bit me!!"

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line, and then, "I think that's the woosiest thing I have ever heard."

Ladybugs: 1
Me: 0

The Landlord

Washington DC is notorious for having hot and humid summers, and this particular summer was no different. In fact, it was the summer that broke all records... it was also the summer that my downstairs neighbor's air conditioning broke.

I was living in a two story house that had been subdivided into three apartments. I lived on the top floor, two girls on the main floor, and a young man in the basement. The house was quite old, and the landlord was using it purely as a cash cow, using as little money as possible to fix up problems so the place was at least habitable. So when the air conditioning went out, we figured it could be weeks before it would be replaced...and sure enough, the time began to drag on...and no air conditioning was installed.

This wasn't the only problem at the time, however. At the same time paint was peeling off the walls in several places in our apartment, the ceiling was falling apart in the main floor apartment, and the landscaping that had previously been redone earlier that spring looked very similar to a garden plot done by second graders, except this time without adult supervision. Needless to say, things weren't exactly going as one might hope.

I finally had it. I sent a scathing email letting the landlord know that we, as tenants, were unhappy with the amount of time and money that he was putting into the place. I hit the send button...it was off. Three hours later my cell phone went off, and sure enough it was the landlord. I was in no disposition to talk to him at the time, and I promptly sent him to my voice mail.

"Hello, Jay...we have a problem, and I need you to call me as soon as possible."

Oh great. He got my email and now he is angry. This isn't going to be pleasant.

Well I finished off the day, and made the call as I was driving home from work.

"Hi, this is Jay, you asked me to call?"

"Jay, how are you?"

"I'm fine," I replied, "and you?"

"Oh, I'm not so good. I twisted my ankle and I've been laid up all day." It was only at this moment that I realized that he had not received my email and was calling for an entirely different reason. "Jay, can you do me a favor?"

"What?"

"Well....see....I bought a new window unit air conditioner for the main floor apartment and I left it in their apartment. I was wondering if you could just grab it and take it up to your apartment for the time being?"

"Why?"

"Well...uh....you see....the guy I hired to put that in, he has kind of left the area suddenly, and I'm afraid that he might go and grab that unit and take it with him to sell it."

"Why would he do that?" I asked.

"Well....uh...he...well, he just got out of prison after being in there for 10 years on larceny charges."

"Let me get this straight, you hired an ex-con to come in to our house?!"

"Well, he was cheap...," he said as if this made it okay.

"And have you told the girl's about this?"

"Well...no...."

"I'll call you back."

So I immediately called one of the main floor tenants. After explaining the situation to her, she asked, "Why didn't he call me first?? Is his air conditioner that much more important than my safety and life?!!" It was par for the course for the landlord. After collecting her thoughts, she finally asked, "So...does Frank still have a key to our apartment then?" I immediately called back the landlord.

"Does Frank still have a key to the girl's apartment?"

"Well.....yes...."

"You need to change those locks. Immediately. You have twenty-four hours to do so."

"I guess you are right," he replied.

Sure enough, that night upon arriving home, the air conditioner was gone. We looked all over the apartment with no success. Frank had run off with the air conditioner.

Several months passed without us bringing up the situation. However, it wasn't long until again the landlord was doing things as cheap as possible with the results turning out accordingly. Again, we sent emails complaining about his service record and particularly reminding him about the fiasco with Frank, how Frank had stolen the air conditioner.

"Well about Frank," his email replied, "he actually didn't steal the air conditioner given the fact that I had not yet paid him for it..."

Nothing like a landlord that asks you to help him steal something for him.

The Raffle

Summertime always means many things, but one thing that it means almost universally is family reunions. That's right, time to meet up with those members of the family that for some reason you haven't kept in touch with for the last twelve months. Now some families aren't so active with their reunions, but with my family there seems to be a reunion every month if not twice during the month, whether we attend or not...

Now in my first blog you may remember meeting Aunt Joy. Aunt Joy absolutely adores family reunions. She'll sit you down and start asking you questions about what is new in your life, the usual stuff. In the beginning, you'll have maybe two, sometimes three minutes when it is a discussion. For those that know Aunt Joy well enough, it is during these precious few minutes that you start glaring a sibling, cousin, spouse, someone to come and rescue you, because the next hour or two is only a discussion because every now and again you might get to utter the word, "uh huh," "I see," or "well.....uh huh..." Desperately you try and think of some excuse to get out of there, but what can you say? "Oh my look at the time, Aunt Joy, I have to..." Yeah right, you are stuck there, grin and bear it.

Well this year was a bit different, Aunt Joy didn't actually have the time to stop and talk because this year Aunt Joy was in charge of the infamous raffle. I'm really not sure how the raffle got started, or better yet why. I think it was one of those crazy ideas where some of the family got together and said, rather than asking people to pay for the reunion, let's have a raffle. Which is almost never a good idea, at least on the small scale.

Naturally, with every raffle, there are a few choice prizes, and then there is a lot of junk. It's pretty much the idea of a raffle, get a lot of people to buy tickets for the nice stuff, and then send them home with something worthless. This year was no exception. The sought after prizes this year included Betty's pile of home made caramels; Uncle Loeey's (don't ask why he spells it that way, he just does) leather work; and finally the greatest of all, Lily's afghan. Lily was known for doing the most intricate crochet work you had ever seen. In fact many people didn't even use Lily's work for warmth, they would actually hang them on their wall and just admire them.

Well, sure enough, the raffle worked it's magic and before long raffle tickets were selling faster than lemonade on a summer's afternoon. Everyone naturally wanted the afghan. Sure, people would be satisfied with the leather, or even the caramels, but they bought the ticket for that one chance at the afghan.

Aunt Joy was truly in her element. There she was handing out tickets, collecting money, enouraging people to buy at this table, selling handfuls at that table. It was the most money that had ever been collected.

"Okay, everyone time is up to be buying your tickets, it's time for the raffle to start," cried Aunt Joy in her shrill voice.

"Now let's see her, first up we have this lovely key holder." Lovely was a bit of an overstatement, frankly it looked like a do it yourself project gone awry. It was a small box with a door that was secured quite loosely with one hinge. Inside someone had stained about half of it and on the outside someone had glued on a picture of the Eiffel Tower. "Oh wow, and it looks like it is from France! Let's see here, 11525, who has 11525? Oh little Sue! Congratulations!!" What a ten year old was going to do with a key holder, I don't know. "Now aren't you cute..."

"Alright next up, now lookey here, it is a decorated fly swatter, no more run of the mill fly swatter for whoever wins this....and look it is 11309! Who has that? 11309? Hello? 11309?!" Turned out it was grandpa...he had already returned to the nursing home, where I am sure that flyswatter with the lace edging is hanging quite nicely on his wall.

No one really cared about these prizes though, it was the big prize they were after. Time could not have ticked more slowly by...one hour, than two, everyone seemed to be collecting a bit of trash here and a bit of junk there. Finally, two and a half hours after the raffle began interest was piqued.

"Now everyone, just a few more left. It appears I have saved the best for last. Let's see here, Betty's homemade caramels. Won't this person be a lucky one that wins this? 11467! That's right 11467...who has it? Oh why by golly, it is my little grandaughter Emma! I'm sure you will enjoy these, I saw how your mouth was watering earlier when you were looking at them." A bit of let down for some...but there were still two left...

"Uncle Loeey's beautiful leather work. Let's see, let me reach way down for this one...and we have 11015! Oh my, look my son Peter won it! I'm sure this will go great with those new boots you just bought!"

At this point things started to appear just a bit fishy. Okay, so Joy's relatives had won two of the big prizes, and perhaps even worse she wasn't even hiding the fact that the winner had been chosen long before her hand entered the bag. However, the biggest one was left...there was still a chance...surely even Aunt Joy wouldn't go so far as to cheat everyone out of their chance on the big one...

"Last item everyone, it's the big one! Lily's afghan! Isn't this just exquisite? Whoever wins this will sure be a lucky one! Let me see here, we better really pick up a good one for this one...and the winner is...11690! 11690! Anyone? Surely someone has 11690..." At this point, everyone had lost hope, we knew what was coming... Aunt Joy continued, "Oh my, wait a second, it appears that I have 11690! Why, what a great surprise, I have just the right spot for this, it will be perfect! It sure appears my family was extra lucky today!"

Apparently, there is no need for luck with Aunt Joy. But what could you say? The next year, we had an auction, I figure it is only a matter of time...

The Most Beautiful Nails

It was the summer of 2000, I was working in a laboratory testing water (see Chicken Water). Everyday there would be different people arriving with water samples to be tested. Usually, the delivery was dropped off by a man, probably because in some regards collecting the water was a dirty job that most women were not interested in.

Typically the mornings at my job were filled with reading out the previous days results only to be followed by a bit of downtime as we waited for additional samples to come in throughout the day before starting the new tests in the afternoon. During that time we would often chat about different things going on during the day or events that we were coming up with, etc. When customers would come in, they would ring a doorbell, and then one of the employees would greet them at the door and accept the sample that they had brought. The rest of us might look to see who it was, but often remained in the back of the lab.

Naturally, it came as a bit of a shock when my co-workers told me about a particular customer that would come in with the most beautifully painted fingernails. On and on they would rave about just how perfectly they were painted, usually with a intricate work being done on the long nails. However, this customer only came in once a quarter at best, so for quite some time I only heard about the nails. I was a bit surprised that a woman with such beautiful nails delivered the samples from an oil refinery that was fifty miles to the north. I had to admit, this came as a bit of a shock, who would think that a lady that would take so much time to work on her nails would be employed at an oil refinery?

On one particular morning, myself and the other employees were chatting in the back when the doorbell rang. Who was it? Sure enough, it was a delivery from the oil refinery. I was told in a whisper that I should be the one to go and collect the sample. So, I walked to the front of the lab to greet the customer. Naturally, my first glance was to the nails, which were indeed impressive. They were painted cherry red with a slight starburst of white in the top of each nail. It was hard to imagine how much time was spent to create such fine and intricate lines.

Slowly my eyes left her nails to reach the hands, which, to my surprise were not young hands, but rather belonged to someone that must have been in their 60s. I'm not exactly sure why, but as she put the sample down on the counter, I found myself focused more on her hands as she was signing the chain of custody than on anything else.

After she finished signing the paper she slid over to me, where I read her signature, Stephen Michaels. Stephen? My eyes slowly lifted up to find the woman dressed in a pair of old overalls and a t-shirt. I found this even more odd, first, that her name was Stephen and second that a woman of her age would be wearing overalls. Her hair ended right above her shoulders in somewhat of a long page-boy type hair cut, that was clearly a poorly managed wig. Just as my eyes reached her face, the obviousness of the situation hit me. Sure enough, the woman from the oil refinery turned out to be just another man, bringing in a sample from his dirty job.