Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Landlady

The following story will not be funny to you, because you, dear lucky reader, have no idea how psychotic my landlady is, which would make its own hilarious post, but one that would make me feel a little too mean.

Anyhoo, conversation with my landlady, who lives in the apartment above us and comes to nag at least once a week:

LL: (in the middle of a rant about how we are destroying her apartment)...and why don't you just keep the apartment nice, Tomie?
Me: (sick of having her get it wrong for the last month or so) Tobie
LL: What?
Me: Tobie. Not Tomie. With a B.
LL: Tobie, Tomie, there are so many names...
Me: (stares at her dispassionate, trying not to say anything sarcastic)
LL: Tobie...why don't you change it to a nice Israeli name?
Me: (shrug, meant to express 'I don't know, maybe I'm sort of partial to, you know, my name')
LL: Tobie....there are dogs named Tobie.
Me: (blinks at her, waiting to see if at any point she will realize why this might not be an okay train of thought)
LL: (taking the look as disbelief, which it is, in a way) No really, my daughter, she has a dog...
Me: (trying not to make any thought connections between dogs and the landlady, especially the obvious ones) Can I go back to my work now?

5 comments:

Rogue Unicorn said...

Didn't you guys move out of the apartment with the crazy landlady, or is this a new one?
A friend of mine almost named his parrot "tiki". Not the same, but still...

e-kvetcher said...

Isn't this why you moved to Israel, Tomie? Charming natives?

Mike said...

"When Tobie first came into the family none of us really wanted him around".

Dave said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave said...

I think I know the look you're talking about! I have to agree with the landlady that it does look a bit like disbelief, although it's usually supposed to be something else.