Unpleasantness in Mount Pleasant.

What targeted ads will Google show me now?

I had an annoying start to my morning. I found out that my bank rejected my request to increase my credit limit. They’d sent me a letter last year pre-approving me for this amount; I didn’t take it because, at the time, I didn’t need that much. Well, I will need that much for my crowns in January, so I needed to either increase my credit limit or set up an appointment with the bank so that I can walk out with a briefcase full of fat stacks. Or a duffel pack, but I don’t own that either.

The annoying part was how they rejected my online request and told me to give them a call if I needed answers. 99% of the time, this leads to them making a complicated compromise for my communication needs. A commonly proposed non-solution, for instance, would have them send me forms to sign off to give someone Power of Attorney to call on my behalf. Revenu Québec, Vidéotron, and Sun Life have all proposed this infantilizing shittiness. Fuck that. I’m an adult.

How come we can file our income taxes online, which have a colossal amount of personal information, but I need working ears to communicate with banking personnel? Resistance is imminent, and it fills me with premature rage.

Within my online bank account, I also learn that Best Buy has issued me a refund for the external hard drive I’d ordered from them, for which I’d been waiting two weeks. I have been storing bytes upon bytes of personal information on Yann’s hard drive and need to take back ownership before he moves out.

His move-out date is January 1st. I don’t plan on forfeiting the security and pet deposit, so I’m aiming to be living somewhere less unaffordable by the 1st of February. Besides, midway through the month, there’s not much left but scams and studio suites in Crack Towers. I should keep trying anyway in case something for February pops up this early. Alas, 2020 isn’t the year for good fortunes.

I try to give myself a mental pep-talk every morning, like this:

But, nah, I went climbing with Nic after work. If I want to forget about my problems for a few hours, climbing is my bandaid solution. When I climb, I don’t think about anything beyond my next few moves.

In-between climbs, Nic asked, in response to my bygone roommates, “How can anyone dislike you?”

First, that’s a flattering question. Secondly, it’s also an easy question to answer: I’m not for everybody. Just as well: more than half of the people I meet, I don’t like. I’m basically a tacky snob. Lastly, this question invites more details, which I am willing to share.

Before I lived with these two ill-fated roommates, I lived by myself in a hovel in South Cambie. It was the crappiest place I’ve ever lived in, but making it on my own in Vancouver at the age of 25 was a point of pride. Still, I was only making about $12/hr at the time and getting weary of seeing a sizeable chunk of my paycheque go towards living in a dump.

When my friend Kristen got pregnant, I saw it as an opportunity to take over her bedroom in a delightful house in Mount Pleasant. “Yay! You’re having a baby, and your room is available!”

Like me, Kristen is deaf, but the two roommates were not. I must also note that these roommates were not a couple. The place was a four-bedroom suite, with the fourth bedroom assigned to Richard Simmons. I’d even slept in that room as a guest before moving in.

I still showed up for the prerequisite roommate interview. I told them that I was an early riser and that I enjoyed cooking but always clean up after myself. The guy was too busy watching the NHL playoffs to participate in this interview, but I’d already known he was a bit of an eccentric: The Richard Simmons collage, 200+ pairs of sneakers, and OCD. Friends of Kristen and mine referred to him as Turkey Guy because he worked as a butcher at a place in Granville Island Public Market that sold only turkey meat. If Kristen could deal with that for two years, so could I.

Now would be a good time to mention that the guy never learned any sign language, while Lady Roomie only knew “How are you” and “Thank you.” I took this as a sign–no pun intended–that they wanted a strictly roommates arrangement, with which I was ok.

My avoidance is not to be mistaken for shyness. When I am not in a good mood, I avoid interacting with people because I have trouble not projecting my negativity on others. Otherwise, I’m charismatic.

During my first month as the new roommate, I’d visit my terminally ill mom at the hospice weekly; then, I’d come home in low spirits and retreat to my room. Also, I had bought flight tickets to Beijing on an impulse, knowing that even though I hadn’t saved up for the trip, that my rent was going to be cut nearly in half. As long as I continued my thrifty South Cambie habits, I knew I could make something positive happen with a sudden adventure to China!

Guess what? The roommates didn’t like that I’d get up so early. They did not like that I used the kitchen every night, even though I’d always ask them first if they needed the kitchen within the next hour. They did not appreciate how, unlike Kristen, whose job took her out of town frequently, my frugal ass was always at home. And they did not like that I spent most of the time at home, in my room.

They wanted a friend, but they forgot that I’d told them about my dying mother. They didn’t understand that they needed to earn my friendship by learning some sign language. I saw Turkey Guy’s Tweet about Scoops because he’d written his Twitter handle on our whiteboard a few days prior. Yet I was the unfriendly one?

Turkey Guy was too much of a coward to tell me himself that he didn’t want me around. Lady Roomie was the one who had the conversation with me. I cried, told her that I’d gotten rid of most of my furniture to move in with them and that I didn’t have the funds to move again so soon. They had no right to kick me out like that, but I didn’t want to stay with people who disliked me that much either. After pleading for extra time, Lady Roomie had a somewhat sympathetic response but added, “[Turkey Guy] is really not going to like this.”

I don’t know why she sided with him that much when he was often leaving her aggressive notes on the communal whiteboard. I suppose she respected him as the longest-standing tenant of our place, even though the three of us were equals on the lease.

Turkey Guy started behaving hostile around me after that conversation took place, so I stayed out of the house as much as possible. The roommates loved my frequent absence and, a month later, held a meeting in which Turkey Guy was in attendance. They felt that our living arrangement had vastly improved and invited me to stick around.

What I said: “Sounds great!”

What I thought: “I’ll only stay because I don’t want to move again, but fuck you bitches. I’ll throw fish in the vents before I go.”

I didn’t throw fish in the vents, but I never forgave them. Although, if it weren’t for the antagonistic duo, I wouldn’t have been as receptive about moving into a one-bedroom in Vancouver with a guy I met in Québec City who was supposed to be just a fling. My relationship with this guy led to relocating to Montréal four years later, where I met Nic.

Then I went climbing with Nic tonight because these roommates were fuckbags towards me at the right moment.

CHAOS THEORY.