This Can Only End Badly

In the three plus months since I moved into the condo, I have lived a generally peaceful existence. Sure, there's been battles with Comcast, Verizon, the granite countertop measurers who think speaking loudly makes them understandable, the dudes who squoze my 4ft furniture through a 3ft doorway, and I've had to wrestle my mail from the remarkably inquisitive desk troll, but all that is to be expected.

Since I'm the only person in the building who isn't collecting social security, I've managed to avoid nearly all contact with my neighbors. Which, for my socially inept and morning-grumpy self, has been a lovely bonus to the tax benefits of ownership. I don't have to pretend to be jolly when I'm not and I practically have the laundry room to myself after everyone goes to bed at 6pm. Ahhh....

Then, the other day, a crack in the foundation of my fortress of solitude was forged when I rode the elevator with a(n especially elderly) lady who insisted on chatting with me. The. Whole. Ride. Up. Thirty post-work seconds that are usually designated towards blissful introspective silence ruined and, get this, turned into nearly 27 minutes of life lost when she exited the elevator on my floor. "Oh! You live on my floor!" she said, and then she was off to the races. If she had been wearing her hearing aid, she likely would have heard my heart sink. She might also have heard anything I said over the next half hour including my name, which I repeated at her request at least two dozen times. By the second dozen, I was making up names. "Nice to meet you", I said rather loudly, "I AM SANJAYA"!

You know you're jealous that I got to scream that in my hallway.

Anyway, old Ms. McDonald shared unsolicited information with me regarding the previous residents of my condo apartment. It turns out that they were [insert whisper] Muslim [end whisper]. They had 2 sons and one of them married a [insert whisper] Christian [end whisper]. Where I come from, such whisper placement is indicitave of only the most horrible of afflictions. Such as:

• "Did you hear what happened to Schlomo? He's got terrible [insert whisper] diarrhea [end whisper]" or,
• "They had two sons and one of them married a [insert whisper] Christian [end whisper]!"

Ms. McDonald clearly felt these tidbits to be both tragic and enlightening. Her little face lit up and she waggled her fat fingers in the air with delight. She said that if I ever needed anything I could come on by her place and I offered the same. I was being kind, but at the time, all I was thinking about was creeping towards my door and getting the 84 pound laptop off of my shoulder.

Now I live in fear that Ms. McDonald will wake me on a Sunday morning and I will be forced to murder the nice little ol' lady on the spot and spend the rest of the weekend scrubbing her blood off the doorstep.