I do have a reply to Gabe the babe, worried about those of us finding ourselves in the emergant conversation, but that's not why I'm writing. This is a follow-up on my apartment situation, a short story of the last two days of my life, aptly entitled "My lease is up by November!"
A bit more than twenty-four hours ago, I was planning how to pack my entire apartment and find a new place to live by Friday because of a single letter left on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. The letter stated that owed rent in the amount of nearly three hundred dollars and was required to pay the amount of move out in three days. I read the letter over and over again, trying to understand where this came from, where the amount came from, anything. My brother was out at a concert last night, so I couldn't get ahold of him to ask if I could bunk at his place for a few weeks while I tried to figure this out. I called my friend Matt. He lives in Portland, and we might move in together when my lease is up, so I asked him about the house we went to check out last week. His offer was accepted and it would be his by the first week in October. He said he thought everything would be fine, and I said I hope so, but I was still really aggrivated and confused.
I guess I need to explain why this seems so unbelievable. My rent is direct debit, so the only month's rent that I've paid myself was for May. I knew that my rent was due at the beginning of the month, but I saw that just the day before, all my rent and utilities were taken out of my account, just like that had in previous months. If I wasn't in control of paying my rent, how could I be short on paying? And the amount they wanted wasn't a round number, like half of my rent or anything like that. I was so out of it that I didn't eat anything and resorted to pencil sketches of Montana mountains to try and calm me down. Around eleven I decided to look back through my account statements to see what had been taken out. I found a glitch. All the way back at the beginning of May, the direct debit amount was $200 short of my total rent amount. So there's that much. Then I figured it could be utilities, but the rest of the total amount was more than a month's worth of utilities. More than two months, even. I was ready to really give them an earful the next day about how this wasn't my fault and how I knew I wasn't going to renew my lease because of crap like this.
I went down to the rental office this morning. I simply asked the worker what this (meaning the letter) was, and she was more confused than I was. I had to actually explain to her where I had found the direct debit that was short two-hundred dollars. Then there was utilities that weren't taken out, and the rest was a late fee. I got a lot of apologies, and I stayed pretty placid. I mean, I still owed money, but the letter shouldn't have showed up, and the whole thing seems to be a crappy mess that makes me glad I signed a six-month lease. I get paid on Friday, so my apartment gets their money and I am not delinquit on rent like I thought I was. Still, if I had been without that much money back in June or July, I wouldn't have bought this computer, and I would have been more careful with my spending. It's kind of a big deal, and I'm still a little annoyed about it. Don't tell somebody they have to pay money or move out in three days with no prior notice or explanation. Not as funny of a story as I thought. Had fun swing dancing tonight. Actually ate two meals today, if you consider a Tony's pizza and cranberrie cocktale juice a meal. My stomach may agree with you here soon enough. Gabe, you'll get a good, thoughtful reply from a foundationless existenialist here soon enough. In the meanwhile, you should pick up the more formal and connected picture of emergent thought in Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian or A Generous Orthodoxy. The man speaks my language. Might be language of a heritic to some, but if they're going down, me too. Gotta go. I actually work tomorrow.