Dogger Gatsby's Pissed-off Notebook

APARTMENT AIR CONDITIONER BLUES

The worst thing was the people, not the broken air conditioner. And not the repairman, either, but the office people, the ones I had to talk to until the repairman showed up, and that never seemed to know anything. Okay, if they didn't know when the guy would show up. I'd done service jobs and understood something of that. But the office fools had no sense of the history of the thing; they didn't know what was wrong with the air conditioner the last time, they didn't know how many times it had been broken over the years, they didn't know the history! And one of them was so new that she didn't even know me, and she was the one I had to talk to. Shit! Finally I did get to speak to the manageress, someone that knew me, but she was on a short wire. Not mad, exactly, but impatient, with one on hold on the phone and me smirking at her in person and saying something crazy, maybe,

"If I ever get over being lazy, this is the one thing that I really hate about these apartments. It's the reason I'll pick up and leave. Not now; I'm paying the rent today, I just gave the other girl the check."

But everything has a history, I felt, and this was meant to be part of it. Only I knew what the hell I meant, though. Was everyone but me brain-dead, or was I included?

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