There's no such thing as a benign Post-It

Instead of "Thanx," I'm going to start signing things, "Hugz!"

This note appeared the day Older Sister (OS) left for the weekend. This note means she had to check the weather for days she would not be Chicago in order to create a task for me to do in her absence. 

Granted, I didn't even know we had flowers until I saw this note, but OS clearly over-prepared for her vacation as a whole. As evidenced by the conversation I wandered into the day before:

Younger Sister (YS), reading aloud from her computer: A bear will sense any food. Even a stick of gum will attract a bear and encourage it to attack! You should carry Bear Mace in order to protect yourself.

Older Sister (OS) furiously scribbles the words "Bear Mace" on paper.

OS: Wait, which Bear Mace do I buy?

Me, trying to remember if anything escaped the zoo recently: Did someone see a bear? 

OS: Oh no, I'm going to Glacier National Park next week.

Me: Oh, fun! Camping?

OS: No. But we might go hiking.

Me: Like backwoods?

OS: No, like on a guided tour. 

So she bought Bear Mace. To go hiking with a guide in a national park. 

No wonder she told me to water the flowers. I'm surprised there wasn't a Post-It reminding me to wear clothes. Or breathe. 

Except then I forgot to pay the rent...

Home maintenance in three parts, Part 3

An entire note comprised of sentence fragments with punctuation? Talent.

I had two reactions to this note:

1. Why didn't anyone ask me to help clean the basement since the leak ruined my stuff?

2. How often do most people clean the fridge? 

In regards to the first question, I had this conversation with the Younger Sister (YS):

Me: I had no idea the leak was that bad! I would have helped clean...

YS: Oh, no problem. It's happened before. That pipe is just really old. 

Me: Oh...
YS: We tried to save most of your stuff...it's drying downstairs. But we had to throw some of it out, like all the paper stuff.
Me: Um, ok.

To be fair, most of the stuff downstairs is down there because I don't actually need it. And throwing out wrapping paper that I've carted with me from my last three apartments is probably a good thing.

I'm more concerned with when I asked to put the file box of tax records in the basement, I was directed to place it in the corner with a history of flooding sewage.

I'm also still unclear as to why the note seems to evoke feelings of guilt when clearly none of this was my fault.

Other things I'm unclear on include the second question. Because washing the shelves of the fridge once a month seems excessive to me.

Then again, you can't make much of a mess when you only have a container of butter on your tiny shelf. 

Home maintenance in three parts, Part 2

What might this note have said if it started with its original "I?"

After the sisters ran the dishwasher, the leak got worse. A pipe burst and gushed water over everything stored below the stairs. 

My stuff is stored below the stairs. 

The first note was to deter us from using the sink in order to keep the water at bay. Over the course of five hours, nine dishes appeared in the sink that Norm and I avoided washing. 

This note appeared shortly thereafter. 

In case I need to barter, my belongings are worth exactly nine dirty dishes.

Home maintenance in three parts, Part 1

Translation: Free from chores!

Last weekend we had a huge storm for seven minutes. It may have been longer than seven minutes, but that is the amount of time that I remember, since it happened in the middle of the night. What sounded like a squirrel scrambling inside a plastic bag woke me up for long enough to figure out that the window in my room was leaking. I stayed awake long enough to put towels down and promptly passed out. 

I did not write a Post-It. Mainly because my room is filled with non-recycled trash and sweaty yoga clothes and I'm afraid of drawing undue attention to my mess. 

But also because I didn't even think of it. I have conversations in person instead of over small pieces of sticky paper. In fact, the next morning, I told Norm about the leak in person. She told me there was a leak in the basement as well. I heard her tell one of the sisters about it too. 

At this point 3 of the 4 roommates were informed of the leak in the basement. And yet this note appeared an hour later. 

And the fourth roommate actually wrote the note. 

Clearly nothing can be certifiably true at the Asylum unless it's stuck to the fridge. 

Chalkboard vs. Post-It

A blank slate. Literally. 

Who would win in a cage-match of notes, a Post-It or a chalkboard? I vote chalkboard, hands down. 

And yet, in much the same way that paper inexplicably and erroneously beats rock, the chalkboard at the Asylum remains empty and unused while Post-Its fly wild around the house. 

I do not understand this. Which is probably also why, in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, I always throw rock. 

What can you make with vinegar and eggs?

Four girls, 7,000 lbs of food.

This is the Asylum fridge. Guess which shelf is mine.

I'll give you 4.3 seconds. 

It's this one:

Yes, my diet consists of Greek yogurt, balsamic vinegar, butter and eggs. Don't judge me.

I'll give you another 4.3 seconds to scroll back to the top and look at this again. 

(In case you can't see my shelf in the large-scale picture, it's the one glowing from lack of things. Also, it's the smallest.) My only things in the fridge are found on this shelf. If I buy something taller than vinegar, I have to lay it on its side. 

If I don't, I'll find it on its side on my shelf the next time I use the fridge anyway. 

In somewhat related news, I've been eating a lot of trail mix. 

Smiley faces are not Band-Aids

Take turns, children. Even when nothing belongs to you. 

Thank GOD I found this bright yellow Post-It reminding me that this past weekend was cleaning weekend. 

I mean, even though we have a typed schedule with names assigned to rooms and dates next to the intended completion...and even though when we finish cleaning we mark it off in red marker...and even though it's been exactly 24 hrs. since the intended completion deadline...I totally could have missed cleaning the unused guest bathroom until at least Thursday. Or until it was actually dirty. 

Thanks to you, double-exclamation-point-turned-into-a-bunny-face, I did not forget. 

But you can't make me do anything about it. 

My secret stash

You don't keep brand-name chemicals under your bed? Oh. 

The older sister is the clean freak. Unfortunately, she is also particularly sensitive about the products we are supposed to use to clean things. Apparently, chemicals not only smell too strong but somehow eat away at your insides and turn you into mutant lagoon creatures. 

Approved items for scrubbing counters and floors include:

• Water
• Vinegar
• Dishsoap
• Rags
• Toothbrushes

Banned items:

• Anything else

And by "anything else," I mean items that take you from a Merry Maid to an actual happy person, like paper towels and Swiffers. At the beginning of my tenure here at the Asylum, I was taught to clean the bathroom by filling a bucket with soap and water and washing the floor with a rag and my bare hands. 

Because everyone has time to do this. 

I did really want to be Cinderella when I was little. Now I just keep Lysol wipes and Pledge under my bed. 

Ask and you shall feel guilty

Nicest. Post-It. Yet. I kind of want to frame it.

I am terrible at leaving my laundry in the dryer after it's done. And also in the washer while my first load is chillin' in the dryer. I am terribly apologetic about it and have pre-emptively told all of my roommates that this is something I know I do, so if you need to use the washer or dryer, feel free to kick my stuff out. Or holler at me about it.

The one thing I do not get reprimanded for in the apartment? Leaving my laundry in the dryer. Maybe because of my pre-emptive apology. Maybe because my laundry had actually only been left alone for a couple of hours before this Post-It appeared. Unsolved mysteries of the universe remain.

Note: The offer to take my bags of clothes to Goodwill means the new time to beat for leaving things around the house is a full week!

Fires, people. FIRES.

No punctuation for the second sentence? Of all the times to forget an exclamation point. ..

This is permanently affixed to the dryer. Next to the lint trap. In case you haven't done laundry since the age of 8. Or ever. Or in case the next roommate is Amish. 

Fire safety is an important issue, and lint is flammable. If there had ever been any to torch in the dryer since I've lived here, this note would be apt. However, it takes me two loads of towels to even build up enough lint to peel the trap clean.  

A Post-It reminding me that I actually did my laundry and it's still in the dryer would be way more helpful...

Boomerang clutter

Could I read more boring magazines? Probably not. 

While the sisters were out of town for July 4th, I wasn't as careful about picking up after myself in the living areas. I left a pair of shoes in the middle of the living room. I left four glasses in the sink. And I left these things (see above) on the dining room table. 

Within an hour of their return, the glasses were washed, the shoes placed by the door, and the suntan lotion and magazine set outside my bedroom door, as evidenced in the picture. 

The short-term moral of the story: I am not allowed to leave things downstairs. 

The long-term moral of the story: Set a new record for how long I can leave things around before they are returned to my door. The time to beat is 2 hours.

Hey hey, idiots!

Five dashes in three phrases = too many. 

File under, "Notes from Captain Obvious." 

Translated, this note actually reads, "You and Norm are slobs. Please take the recycling down when it's too full, wipe down the counters when you eat late-night food and even though the plants are not yours, please don't pretend you can't see them and water them occasionally and more often than that cactus you killed once by putting it in time out against the window for a year and a half." 

They don't know about the cactus, but this version is still more honest than the one above. 

If I blame you for it, then you did it, right?

Ooh, MadLibs! Oh wait, no. Just random underlines. 

We had a lot of things broken at the Asylum, so we finally had someone come to fix them. Take-aways from this note: 

1. The shower clog is a recurring theme in Post-It Land. I'm a yoga teacher and I shower at the studio every day. In the month of June, I took exactly one shower at the apartment. So that shower clog? Not mine.

2. The broken bathroom drawer, however, is mine. The only things in it are also mine. It's not heavy. Sum contents: Vitamins, lotion, face wash, razor and floss. One day I came home to find it off its hinge, shoved back in place, unable to move it. 

By "don't put weight when closing/opening it," maybe she meant, "I broke your drawer while going through your things and now I'm blaming you for it?" Because that seems about right. 

Merry Christmas, Maggie!

Don't even think about it - that font is patented.  Probably. Circa 1984. By a typewriter company.

This highly sentimental holiday greeting is posted on the bulletin board by the front door. Maggie was the old roommate. She hasn't lived there since August 2010. The landlord clearly has no idea that I exist, even though I signed the lease while sitting in his living room.

He also apparently has no idea about the advent of computers. Or the demise of the telegraph.

It's not clean until it's in red marker

Note: I am not to be trusted with the kitchen. 

This is the cleaning schedule. It is posted on the refrigerator. It was not always typed - this developed after several weeks of Post-Its reminding Norm (Normal Roommate) and I to take out the trash every Monday. After it had already been done. 

The picture above is slightly misleading in that I appear to be caught up on my cleaning duties, when usually I am the big, gaping hole in the otherwise orderly schedule. Other things to note:

1. The schedule is paced for cleaning every other week. There are rarely guests and I am never home. "Cleaning" is really "Dirt Plays Hide and Seek."

2. The same roommate who typed the schedule put herself on kitchen duty every time. And yet there is an asterisk, related to nothing, at the bottom reminding all of us to mop the kitchen floor. If no one else lived here, I think she would still write Post-Its to herself. 

3. The last few times I cleaned, I X-ed out the box in pen. You will notice that all the boxes have been re-done in red marker. 

Which is worse - that I may not have cleaned well enough to earn red-marker status, or that I am incapable of checking off boxes correctly?

I didn't forget, I just didn't pay you

Adding a French thank-you does not make you seem nicer.

Rules of living in the Asylum:

1. Shoes off at the door.

2. Recycle everything.

3. If you buy anything that could be used by anyone else, write down how much it was and make everyone pay their part back to you in cash. 

The older sister of the two crazy roommates is compulsive. Like living with Monica on Friends if she were cracked out on Ajax, protein shakes and raging desperation. Before going on vacation, Monica-Filled-With-Rage asked for $4 from each of us. I had a $20 bill and needed change, to which MFWR responded via Post-It, "Just give me the money when you have it." 

MFWR returned at 11pm on a Wednesday night. This Post-It appeared Thursday morning. I can remember lots of things. In fact, I seem to remember what you said better than you can. I remember it so well that I won't have your $4 for a few more days. Oops! Merci. 

One "etc." is usually enough

Four items, three Et ceteras. Recyclable materials are endless!

We have one trash can and two recycle containers. None of these are labeled. In the 10 months that I have lived in the Asylum known as my apartment, I have thrown all recyclable materials interchangeably in either of the recycle containers. Sometimes I don't even rinse them out. 

My normal roommate is convinced she's responsible for this note. I'm pretty sure, however, that this one is on me. Sometimes, just to avoid Post-Its like this one, I keep plastic bottles and wrappers in my room in a pile and then I secretly throw them away in the dumpster. 

It makes me even happier than pointing out that the first "Et cetera" here has been mis-abbreviated to "et.c."