It's so much easier to yell about someone than at them

Someone's an overachiever. Or the rest of us are slackers. I vote "B."

I've stopped cleaning at the Asylum. Like anything. At all. Sometimes I throw a dish in the dishwasher. Times, that is, like once a week when I use a fork at home. 

I'm only home to sleep or belatedly change out the laundry. I haven't used the guest bathroom in two months. I haven't sat in the living room for longer than five minutes in four months. I use the second floor bathroom (where my stuff is) to brush my teeth in the morning and at night. 

For these reasons, I made the decision not to help clean the rooms I don't use. I've been following this plan since mid-July.

You will notice that my name is still crossed off for all the dates after July. 

Two weeks ago, I was hiding in my room, using the computer before bed when I got a text from Norm.

"They are mad at one of us - do you know what's going on," she wrote. She was sitting downstairs. Older Sister had checked her reflection in the living room mirror and immediately whirled around in a huff to Younger Sister.

"This is ridiculous," Older Sister seethed.

"It's not that big a deal," Younger Sister said in an attempt to calm her down. Instead, Older Sister used this as an opportunity to launch into a tirade. The siblings continued to argue in another language, the one reserved for talks about Norm and I. They speak in code to protect us from fully knowing the extent of their rage. Which is strange, because we always know how angry they are. Instead, we just don't always know why.

Using bits of English and chunks of context clues, it appears that because I did not clean the living room, the mirror reflection was not up to correct household standards when Older Sister took a gaze at herself. 

Set aside the idea that a mirror does not collect much dust in the span of two weeks. Ignore the fact that I left my name uncrossed on the chart so that I was obvious and not misleading in my rebellious ways. Draw your attention instead to the red marker that has retroactively crossed my name off the cleaning duties. 

I have done no more cleaning in the past month and a half than I planned to do. That is to say, I have done nothing. My name, however, seems to have been busy.

Weightlifting gloves trump yoga clothes

Gloves dry better if they are arranged as inverse images. Fact.

Often, when the sisters fight with each other, they will slam the doors of their respective rooms. 

Door slamming is punctuation. It's the exclamation point on an all-caps phrase, sealing it shut with the same high volume that carried the argument across the apartment. 

Today I slammed the door of my room. I hadn't had a fight. I hadn't even exchanged a word with Younger Sister, who was downstairs. My door slam was more of an incredulous question mark on the end of a whispered, italicized phrase. 

As previously documented, I am not awesome at laundering punctually. But I do have several things working against me: 

1. I teach hot yoga.

2. I teach hot yoga more than once a day.

3. I teach hot yoga away from the house between the hours of 8am and 10pm. I am at home when Norm is sleeping in the room adjacent to the laundry. 

These things combine to mean:

1. I have to do laundry at least every 10 days or I will smell like a moldy onion. 

2. Sometimes I put laundry in before I leave in the morning and can't change it out until I return at night. 

3. When I do laundry, I have at least two loads to do at a time. 

So I understand when my stuff is in the way and has to be taken out ahead of time or someone throws a load in while my stuff sits aside. 

What I do not understand is how if I do laundry more than the average person, how is someone else in the house ALWAYS doing laundry at the same time as me? What clothing needs washing so urgently that my clothes are, without fail, bumped out of laundry process?

Answer: Weightlifting gloves. 

Just so we're clear, not one, but two, pairs of lady weightlifting gloves, in addition to three sports bras and a pillow case were enough to warrant hurrying my laundry along. 

Just so we're even clearer, my sports clothing, that I get paid to wear, was taken out of the washer and put into the dryer at the wrong setting with someone else's dryer sheets so that the unemployed sister could wash gloves that serve little purpose for anyone. 

Are you kidding me(insert door slam here)

"On time" and "Two and a half weeks early" are two different things

An all-caps "please" is more demand than plea.

For a few months, we paid the cable bill to Older Sister, and she put the entire tab on her credit card. This was the result of a late fee. We were late one time. Mostly because the system for check-writing is that everyone puts in their own check. The last person puts a stamp on the bill and sends it out.

Seems simple. 

Except when the sisters rush to put their checks in first and I am stuck with the stamp. Every. Single. Time. 

One time I ran out of stamps. I took the envelope and stuck it in my gym bag so that no additional Post-Its would stare me down, insisting I go swiftly in search of postage. And then I totally forgot to send it.

We were late the one time because of me, but our checks "never seem to get there in time for some reason." 

Apparently, even so, we have abandoned the credit card scheme and have returned to checks. The above note appeared August 14. It is urgent, imploring, decisively demanding us to pay by tomorrow. 

Here is the original bill:

That is some hella-expensive 60 Minutes.

Note the bill's due date. Sept. 2 is exactly 18 days after the Post-It begs us to dash to our checkbooks. The only way we'd get a late fee is if Comcast confused our payment with the month before. 

Since I was obviously the last one to write a check, I stashed the envelope inside the book I'm reading until I got my paycheck. I sent it out today.

It will still get to the cable company a week early.

One of these things is not like the other

My soap.

Norm's soap.

The Asylum deal with hand-soap is that when one runs out, you reach under the sink and place a new one out on the counter. Hand-soap is one of the premier items featured on the massive Target receipts that accompany reimbursement requests. Given the immensity of the Target haul, there are upwards of three extra bottles in the house at any given time. Currently, there are two under the sink in the second floor bathroom alone. They are always Softsoap. 

And yet...

Younger sister's soap. 

Fancy soap?! I have no hard evidence to prove that this was included in the receipt for which I paid my share.

I did, however, once try to buy my own soap. I bought one that I liked the smell of. I put it on the sink. I did not ask for reimbursement. (Because, A. It was $1.29, B. It was for my side of the sink and C. Really? This is a thing?)

I was told by Younger Sister to use one of the provided soaps under the sink. And, she continued, if I buy something else, put a Post-It downstairs and ask everyone to contribute.

She ran to her room and grabbed 75 cents. I refused.

But in exchange, I have been solely using the fancy soap for a full week. 

The progression of passive-aggressiveness, Final Arguments

Norm's slash indicates she paid the hush money. As in, hush up. Now. 

To recap: 

Wednesday, Exhibit A appeared.

Saturday, Exhibit B appeared. 

Sunday night, Exhibit C appeared. 

Monday night, this appeared. 

Less than a week, and Younger Sister was in dire straits to recoup money for items no one asked her to buy. 

I walked into the Asylum to find this Post-It on the fridge. Actually, I was waiting in line to get to the fridge because Younger Sister decided to jump in front of me as I stood staring at four notes at once. (More on those later this week.) 

YS threw some food on the counter, slammed some cabinets shut and huffed her way over to the sink, muttering, "It's all yours," to me about the fridge. 

In the human world, this signifies, "anger." In Post-It world, it signifies, "read the Post-It to decipher my anger." No one would have verbalized a word unless I started it. 

Me: "Oh, I'll have money for you tomorrow. I'm sorry - I haven't had cash all week." (Note: This is true. I haven't had any kind of money all week. I don't get paid until Monday.)

YS: "Oh, that's OK, I'm just not working right now, so you know."

First of all, clearly this is not OK. Secondly, no, I don't know how parentally financed unemployment translates to petty compulsion. And finally, by not working right now, she means she hasn't been working for six months since she was fired from a bar. 

I've been let go from a bar before. It's a transient industry and management is fickle. YS said the manager was a jerk and didn't have any grounds. While explaining her own defense, she also let it slip she was fired for telling a customer to "f**k himself." 

Since then she has been turned down for jobs because she wasn't willing to drive outside the city and once for how she dressed to the interview. The phone conversation I overhead (easily, since there was much shouting involved,) last week included this soliloquy:

YS (shouting, naturally): "I refuse to wait tables or serve drinks. I am not going to get a bar job. I'm above that. I'm too educated. I'm intellectually overqualified for that job."

YS just finished graduate school, from which her Masters in Teaching degree is pending because of an argument with a professor. She has taken the Illinois Basics Skills test four times. 

She has failed the Illinois Basic Skills test. Four times. 

In all honesty, I probably would have paid my $8 by Sunday under normal circumstances. But I didn't want to. I'm intellectually overqualified for this Post-It. 

The progression of passive-aggressiveness, Exhibit C

It's no Highlights magazine's picture search, but find the differences! 

In the third expression of passive-aggressive money-collection, three minor differences help the younger sister reinforce the theme while changing tactics:

1. Move the Post-It to the fridge for maximum visual traffic.

2. Re-underline deadline using red marker. Add underline for intended recipient, in case everyone paid the wrong person. (You mean I can't pay myself? That's totally why she hasn't received the money yet.)  

3. Fill a parenthesis with a guilt-laden explanation for the amount of money owed. 

I do owe less for the 32 rolls of toilet paper. Because I am moving in two weeks. 

Following this logic, however, I owe less for everything in the house because I'm only home for six sleep-filled hours a day. 

This Post-It has opened up a black hole of money-collection logic. Using this train of thought, instead of $8, I owe about $.75 for the items on this list. And -$562 for the items throughout the year.

Apparently I'll settle for not paying on time and completely ignoring my cleaning duties. 

The progression of passive-aggressiveness, Exhibit B

The most effective thing about this display is the actual ant on the counter. 

In the second expression of passive-aggressive money-collection, a simple Post-It must be bolstered by a few key elements to support the cause. 

1. Buy more things to increase the money owed.

2. Display math equations to make sure all roommates understand the derivative of their bills. 

3. Include receipt for purchases with confusingly circled and crossed-off items.

4. Reiterate urgency with strategic all-caps and underlines. 

If, when following this list, you begin to question the immediate need for 32 rolls of toilet paper when you clearly do not have the money to front the cost for the house, please ignore this red flag. 

Instead, possibly stifle that concern by buying 16 ounces of isopropyl. 

(Personally, I've never gone through an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol in my life. But I also don't buy a crate of toilet paper at a time either.)

The progression of passive-aggressiveness, Exhibit A

Four moneys each. 

In the first expression of passive-aggressive money-collection, you will find a simple Post-It. Necessary points include:

1. The items for reimbursement cleared marked.

2. Enough all-caps and misspelling to indicate urgency. (I.e.: I NEED THIS MONEY SO BADLY THERE IS NO TIME FOR A SPACE BETWEEN "ANT" AND "TRAPS!")

3. A system to define who has paid and who has not. 

This system would obviously break down unless the Post-It writer crosses her own owed money off the list when producing the note. 

This system also breaks down when two of us do not produce four dollar signs within a day. (See Exhibits B and C, coming soon.)

My turn for center-stage fridge-time

The heart signature is obnoxious, I know. 

In three weeks, I move across the country. Our lease runs until October 1, so I have to sublet the last month of the lease or I'm on the hook for September rent. 

I'm a yoga teacher. 

I've been under the poverty line for five years straight.

I need to find a sub-leaser immediately. 

So, according to the older sister's instructions, I posted an ad on Craigslist which yielded several options. All of whom needed to meet the sisters' approval. I teach class until late at night but the other roommates are gone during the day. 

I made the executive (see above, RE: "poverty line") decision to do a trial showing of the apartment first, and then set up appointments with interested candidates to meet everyone else at once. Of the five people I met, only the one mentioned in the Post-It wanted to come back to meet everyone else. Why? 

Two reasons:

1. The sisters decided that since I set up these appointments, I would be in charge of showing the people around. And greeting them. And talking to them at all. To the extent that every time someone came to the door, the older sister would say, "Oh, Kate will be right with you. She's the one showing the apartment." And then she would walk away and leave the girl in the doorway. 

2. The last girl to see the place had the unfortunate luck to show up in the middle of a screaming match between the sisters. This is not an unusual occurrence. More like a monthly event wherein one gets mad at the other for something trivial that explodes into a multi-floored, multi-lung-capacity level fight. They were probably due. For two hours I hid in my room, hoping it would end before the girl came to the door. It did not.

I was excited that even one girl wanted to come back. So I texted everyone about availability. I picked a time that worked for everyone but me, and supplemented any missing information about the girl and her contact info with this mega-Post-It on the fridge.

I did not get a response from either of the sisters. No text, no comment, no return Post-It. I came home to a silent house and a cleaned-off fridge.

Lesson? My Post-Its don't count.

Hearts and coffee, but not for you

Whatever, I don't even like oatmeal. Or coffee. Or fridges. 

This note was written from one sister to the other. Apparently there was oatmeal and coffee to be had. But not for the rest of us. 

I know, tiny violins are playing everywhere. But consider a couple of extra facts:

1. When the sisters host their parents, the parents cook a ton of food and offer it to the rest of us. I'm not sure who actually raised the sisters, but their parents are regular people who say good morning and ask questions. When they visited over Christmas, they left a ham they cooked for all of us. By the time I returned to the Asylum, all I saw of the ham was two slices that had been portioned out in a Ziploc bag and placed on my shelf. A similar bag was on Norm's shelf. The rest of the 7lb. ham was on the sisters' shelves. 

Last time the parents were here, the mom told me I would "have to have one of these blueberry muffins." That I never saw again. 

2. For my birthday that no one at home remembered, the sisters belatedly gave me a fruit tart under the guise of a birthday treat. There were actually two that they had clearly bought for themselves. They kept the other one hidden so I wouldn't see it and ate it after I left the room.

Is it whiny that I feel left out of cold oatmeal and coffee? Yes.

Does anyone have to give me any food that isn't mine? No.

But would I write a Post-It inviting one person to share my food and never anyone else? No.

Everyone is welcome to my butter and trail mix. 

Ants marching...to their collective death

I sprayed then sprayed then wrote a book of Post-Its.

This is most confusing note I've seen so far. Not just because the note itself is disjointed and spastic. This note is confusing because per the content, it would appear that:

1. Norm and I would gladly watch ants parade around the apartment, reveling as their sticky little thoraxes climb all over us and nod in wonder as they swarm our food. 

2. Ant traps had been set out for us to place all over the house, clearly marked with Post-It instructions.

3. We cannot fathom how arduous a task it is to clean out cupboards and spray them down with vinegar.

No one told me it was Opposite Day at the Asylum!

The other confusing thing about this situation? When I opened my cupboard, everything had been put back in random configurations. Brown sugar was on one shelf, white sugar on another, one kind of protein bar on the bottom shelf, and the other on the top. If you had taken all of my stuff out, thrown it in a bag, and hurled it back at the shelves like a shot-put, it would have made more logical sense than this. 

Also, all the clothespins I use to seal open containers had been removed. 

I thought maybe I remembered badly or lost some of them or had a ghost like I thought I did in a previous apartment where the doors kept closing randomly. But then I found them in a pile in the communal utensil drawer. 

As if I had stolen them for a wild turn at sealing bags of rice willy-nilly. 

It's not Opposite Day. It's Mind-Fuck Day!

Shhh, I have a bunch of irresponsible journalism to watch

Average viewing age for this list? 93.

My senior year in college, I watched a lot of Law & Order.  So much that the formidable opening sound became a Pavlovian symbol meaning "study-break time." Except that I didn't really study, so maybe it was more like "regular time." 

The point is that the Asylum communal DVR is 97% full, and Law & Order accounts for the only excusable 9%. If you showed the contents of this DVR to someone from another country, another century or another planet, they would come to three conclusions about the reality of our society:

1. Men hate women.

2. All food is bad for you. 

3. When in doubt, the Black man did it.

OK, four:

4. YOU ARE SO BORING.

I'll admit, I have been lured in by teasers to The Doctors. But it's always disappointing and ends with "don't eat sugar." These shows represent the apex of irresponsible journalism. They prey on the insecurities and ignorances of the American public to feed a greater, White-powered consumerism. 

In short, these shows make people scared of everything in a recklessly racist way. The only show worse than these in that regard is Jerry Springer, and my roommates catch that one live, so there's no need to DVR it. 

If you know better, if you are informed from other shows and sources and life, if you are an educated and absorbent human...well, then these shows are just boring. 

Seriously. Twenty-one episodes of 60 Minutes? 

Holy permanent Vicodin. If I'm going to watch something irresponsible and racist, I'd rather watch Gossip Girl. 

Instead of a late fee, I'll just yell at you

Today is Saturday.

The Asylum rent is due on the first of the month. The rent routine is that we each write our check, put it in the envelope and the last person to pay takes the envelope across the street to our landlord. 

I am usually the last person. By "usually," I mean, "always." And by "last," I mean, I put my check in on the morning of the first of the month. Everyone else pays a week early. 

July 1st was the Friday of Fourth of July weekend. All the roommates left town. I had work and plans and friends and I totally spaced bringing the rent check across the street. 

Saturday morning, July 2nd, the landlord woke me up at 8am with a phone call, berating me for not turning the rent in on time. He yelled at me like I was a preschooler who stabbed someone with scissors during art. Or something even slightly more acceptable for the level of his voice and the content of his condescension. 

By this time, he had also called all of the other roommates, because as evidenced here, he didn't know who I was. Until that morning, he still thought my name was Maggie. 

Norm left me a voicemail apologizing for not warning me about the lack of a grace period with the rent. 

Older Sister left me a voicemail telling me, "Kate, go pay the rent. This is ridiculous and I do not need this right now."

I brought the rent over at 10am. It was a total of 10 hours late. On the Saturday of a holiday weekend. 

The note above appeared this past weekend for August rent. This is my last rent check at the Asylum. 

Who wants to sublet for September?!