andrew61

Confessions of a Slacker
2021-02-05 17:09:00 (UTC)

Had to cancel the interview.

The one at McDonald's I was supposed to have three days ago. Reason being illness which greatly affected my speaking voice.

I've been sick for about a week now. Fever, chills, a very sore throat that makes it painful to eat and swallow solid food. I think I might have strep. COVID has been ruled out; I took a COViD test at MetroHealth yesterday and the results came back negative.

This illness is holding me up and keeping me from doing the things I need to do: find a job and a new place to live before the end of the month.

And now the internet at home has been out for days, which is making things even harder. I'm so grateful the library near me has reopened. At least I can use the computers and internet there. But we're in for an extended period of very bitter cold weather -- wind chills are already in the single digits today and forecasts are for them to drop below zero for at least a couple days next week. I really could do without trudging the daily 20 minute trek to and from the library each way.

~~~~~~~~~

Now, I have no real proof of what I'm about to relate. Just a gut instinct. But it appears my housemate Ron is showing psycho tendencies.

Things were fine for my first few months here. But then I started noticing some weird behavior on his part.

One by one, the items that made the main bathroom useable have been removed. First the bath mat and rug by the sink... then the hand towel... and then the hand soap dispenser.

In the past he's removed the rugs and towel for washing, but put them back within a day or two. But now everything's been missing for over a month. The hand soap dispenser had been emptied and I'd assumed he was just refilling it, but it hasn't returned.

More weird goings-on in the downstairs half-bathroom. He's had the door closed for more than two months. Once in the evening when I went in there to use the facilities while I was downstairs reading and Ron had gone up to bed, I discovered there was a vacuum cleaner sitting there blocking access to the toilet, and a wastebasket was sitting on top of the lid. I got the very clear impression he was signaling to me not to use it.

At a much later date I tried again to find the vacuum and wastebasket had been cleared away. Elated, I used the toilet only to find out afterward I couldn't flush it. Apparently he disconnected the water.

Initially, Ron had encouraged me to use his office/sitting room, the orange room adjacent to my turquoise bedroom. But at some point around November or so he started loading up the desk chair and the small sofa with items like laundry baskets and large parcels. And I got the clear impression he no longer wanted me to use the room.

A couple weeks ago the lever on the toaster suddenly stopped working and wouldn't stay in the down position. Even after I gave a good stab at cleaning out all the crumbs, still nothing. When I asked Ron if something was wrong with the toaster, he was indifferent. Now I believe he sabotaged it so I couldn't use it. I had been making toast along with microwaveable sausage links most mornings. And now I can't have toast.

And the latest thing is the internet. There has mostly not been access on my laptop since Sunday. Five, six days. Ron had set up a "guest" connection which has now completely disappeared from my laptop's list of available networks. That didn't happen before during briefer outages.

When I mentioned the outage to Ron several days ago, he seemed unconcerned. I believe Ron did something so I can't get online.

All of this stuff comes across to me as passive-aggressive and really creepy. Apparently Ron has been silently trying to make things uncomfortable for me here for at least the past two months. I know it sounds paranoid on my part, but the more I think about it, the more I think I'm right.

When I asked him about the toaster one morning last week, that's when he segued into wanting me to move out by the end of February and that's when he served me written notice to vacate.

So, OK. Why did he cut off my internet access after doing that? He knows I need that to apply for jobs and look for a new place. Is he deliberately trying to make my life as difficult as possible?

I also strongly suspect he's been preventing me from receiving some of my mail. Oh, I get all the junk mail that doesn't matter, but the important things never arrive, even when the USPS Informed Delivery site shows that I should have received them. Ron's the only one who has access to the box. I was never shown how to do it. Within view of the living room there is a set of mailboxes that covers this section of the condo subdivision. Maybe my house key opens one of them, but I don't know which one as they're number-coded 1 through 16, and those numbers do not match up with the addresses here. I missed a replacement bank debit card I should have received more than three weeks ago according to USPS Informed Delivery. The card I had expired and I still did not have my new one. I had to have my bank FedEx me the new one, which they did.

And where's my $600 government stimulus check? I so need the money right now.

I feel like I'm the protagonist in a bad Lifetime movie titled Psycho Roommate. Why does everything good that comes into my life have to ultimately turn to crap?




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