Tenant Hell

Last Saturday, my dearest Samantha was moving out of our lovely apartment in the legendary Van Tassel apartment building in Sleepy Hollow that for two years now, I have fondly called home. This happened to be a day where I had no less than 86,094 things to do. Essentially a normal Saturday. One of these things I committed myself to - in addition to and during the moving of course - was baking a banana bread for my dearest Daniel. Amid rushing home from the gym, writing, and helping Sam move, I concocted my version of the Hodgson Mills bread with three times the bananas, extra almonds and...well I can't give it all away now, can I?

I was feeling pretty good about my accomplishments for the day as I poured the deliciously goopy batter into the pan and popped it in a freshly warmed oven. I jumped on to the next task: "Sam, give me a box!" I said, as I raced through the apartment on Superwoman fumes. I grabbed the largest one there was and we started our exit down the three flights of stairs. (You might think that next I'm going say that I fell or dropped the box or something equally painful, but just wait.)

As we were leaving the apartment, behind the massive box I managed to muster up the strength to ask Sam if she had her key. "Yes," she replied, as I locked the door behind me, ready to return in a few short moments to a perfectly cooked banana bread. Dan would be so proud of my multi-tasking - which so efficiently involved the cooking of the bread.

After descending the three flights and dropping the box at the curb, it came time to go back upstairs. And that's when the madness ensued...

Kelly: (calmly) "Can I have the key, I need to go take the bread out of the oven."
Sam: (calmly) "The door's propped."
Kelly: (plainly) "No it's not."
Sam: (still calm) "Yes it is, unless you un-propped it just now."
Kelly: (a tad nervous) "It's not propped, I un-propped it. Can I have the key?"
Sam: (quite baffled) "What key?"
Kelly: (tension and frustration quickly surfacing) "The key, you said you had the key."
Sam: (waving car key in my face, tension and fear now undeniable) "Yeah, the CAR key!"
Kelly: "No, the HOUSE key! You said you had it!" (DUH!)
Sam: "I don't have the HOUSE key! I have the CAR key!" (CRAP!)
Kelly: "Why the f**k would I care about your stupid car key?!" (now in a complete screaming panic while jumping up and down)
Sam: "I don't know! I thought you were being polite!" (the all-too-nice-and-innocent Sam that you cannot possibly be mad at)
Kelly: "F********************K!" (now both jumping up and down. The scene is straight out of I Love Lucy. Guess who's Lucy)

The events that happened next involved: me running to the office of course to find no one there on a Saturday, as usual; me running to find our trusty upstairs neighbor, Paul, and attacking him for his phone to retrieve the maintenance emergency number; Sam doing at least two laps around the entire block to find someone, anyone, to help, including the on-the-corner-man whose name escapes me; Sam running into several street-side bodegas looking for - I'm not sure what, really; and us discovering that our neighbor is actually a fireman. When he saw our crisis he got on the phone with a friend and we overheard, "Should I go get the axe?"

This is all happening a mere half an hour before the NEW roommate is set to move in. I suddenly have a 12-second fantasy of her walking up the stairs, suitcase in hand, move-in clothes on, ready for a new start, only to see a somewhat-hot fireman axeing down our front door. I think she would have turned around.

We got through to the emergency on-call man who should be on the property at all times. I told him we needed to be let in. Now. The oven is on. No time to waste. I hear him on the phone saying to someone else - not me - (insert ridiculously stereotypical Bronx accent), "I gotta go, there's gonna be a fi-ah!" Since I couldn't discern his words and he didn't realize I was still on the phone as he spouted complaints to his company, I decided to call him back to be sure he was on his way. He answered rudely, yelling, "YEAH! I'm comin', I'm comin', Jesus Christ!" He arrived in a huff about 15 minutes later, only to yell at us for "Ruin-in' his lunch wit his girlfriend," which he had "just sat down to," and now had wasted "25 bucks." He left more angry than he came. Sorry pal, but this IS your job.

Luckily the new roomie managed to miss all of this.

Sam rushed inside and immediately pulled the bread out of the oven.

Perhaps not surprisingly - considering mine and Sam's tendency to create mini-crises over which to panic - the bread was cooked to perfection. That night, it was consumed by the Geiger family, who knew not a thing about the near-catastrophe surrounding it's baking.