Monday, June 3, 2002

Melissaphobia (Part 3: Signs and Post-Its)

There were enough signs that Melissa was crazy to keep two engravers, four painters and a troupe of municipal workers in business for the rest of their unnatural lives. First off there was the dog, there were the midnight men, there was the dog, there were the letters addressed to various friends (who I never met) and family members filled with phrases like "you're not being conducive to my needs as a human person" and "I think I'm going to need some space from your negative energy for a while", and, of course, the dog.

I first witnessed one of her nuclear meltdowns in June. I am the sort of person who is pretty well known for being a good listener and problem solver (so long as the problems aren't my own) but when someone tells me they don't want to talk about something, that's the end of the discussion. I'm not going to expend effort to hear about someone's problems, unless there's love, money, or fucking involved. I never did find out what Melissa's meltdown was in response to.

She started leaving me nasty notes. I'm someone who uses a fair amount of notepaper and writing journals but absolutely deplores the Post-It Note industry. Every Post-It Note I've ever seen involves passive aggressive or just downright aggressive language. When I lived in Burlington, my landlord used to leave me love notes such as "Where's the fucking rent?" and "I hate you. Get out of my house." To be fair to him, I was avoiding him because I couldn't afford rent. I understood his frustrations.

Melissa's frustrations were whacky. "I found this pen in the living room. BE MORE CAREFUL!!!!" It was a covered ball-point pen, left in a room that Gussy was forbidden to go into. Another note declared "Gussy did her business in my bedroom while I was gone. In the future PLEASE CLEAN UP when I'm not home." Uhhh...since when is it my business to go into someone else's room and check to see whether or not their spoiled rotten guinea pig impersonator shat on their floor?

In mid-July she announced that she was leaving for Florida for a while. This made me very happy. When she returned home, there were Midnight Men coming at all hours of the day. Fortunately, I was rarely home at all hours of the day. The one great thing about us being roommates was that (after we both quit Crapplebees) she worked days, and I worked nights. We rarely ever saw each other or had to have conversations. Which was good, as I rarely had anything nice to say to her.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/28834.html

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