The Saga Continues... and Then It Stops

So my housemate's still crazy.

My other housemate and I are rarely home and, when we are, we're quiet as mice at a Cat Fancy convention. We take out the trash and recycling, we wash our dishes instantly upon using them, we clean up after ourselves, we buy household supplies, we barely keep anything in the common space, we're respectful and we always lock the door behind us. We pay our rent.

In short, we are nearly perfect tenants and yet, every single time either of us passes the Crazy Housemate in the hall, she ambushes us (separately, we've never discussed this, I've just witnessed it) with a new list of things we've allegedly broken, things we've allegedly done that we shouldn't have done, and things we should be doing that we allegedly haven't done.

It has become unbearable.

Between her and the Crazy Landlady (who ambushes me with a similar frequency and with similarly inane, made-up issues), I am constantly on edge. I go out into the city and I'm bored and lonely. I come home and I'm bored and lonely and also alternating between hiding from my housemate and listening to her nag me while I stare dumbly at her and wonder if I've wandered into the Twilight Zone or perhaps Candid Camera.

This afternoon, I made the mistake of using the bathroom while she was home. I usually try to avoid that but she seems to be home approximately 23 hours a day. The remaining hour is the time she spends at the grocery store, stocking up on more food to cram into our tiny refrigerator so that my other housemate and I are allotted only enough space for about 1 or 2 food items each.

As I passed her in the hall, I was unsurprised when she called me into the shower room to "discuss something". The issue of the hour was that the shower is apparently broken. I probably wouldn't use the word 'broken' to describe the issue in question. I would probably say that it is a very, very old shower and it does appear that occasionally a drop of water escapes from the hose when it's not supposed to, although I had not noticed this previously.

"It's hard to say that anyone broke it," she must have said a hundred times, followed by the specific implication that I, in fact, did break it, evidenced by the fact that she thinks I am "rough with things" (what?) and that it was (allegedly) not broken before I moved in.

I calmly explained to her that it was a very old shower and it seemed exceedingly unlikely to me that anyone broke it, intentionally or otherwise, and that she should advise la guardienne that the apartment needs a new shower, if the slight dripping bothers her.

She assured me that that would be impossible for various inexplicable reasons and that she really hated to pay for it all by herself and it was likely to be very expensive and it's hard to say that anyone broke it, exactly, but...

And then suddenly it clicked.

She isn't crazy. She's trying to scam me.

And suddenly everything was ok.

"Eva, Eva, Eva," I said and then I laughed and then I hugged her, right there in the middle of the bathroom. And then I went into my room and I packed up every single thing that I own, and I went to the train station and I bought myself a ticket right out of this godforsaken country.

I'm cognizant of my privilege in this situation, of course. There are people the whole world over who are being ripped off every single day of their lives and for a lot more than a 200 euro security deposit and they have no place to run.

But I do have someplace to run. And that someplace is England.

I leave very early tomorrow morning. Walking home from the train station, I felt lighter than I have in weeks, which makes sense given that my pocketbook has just slimmed down considerably.

There are things in this world that Matter and things that Don't. Let's file this one under "D".