I would like to consider myself a good person: I say hello to my neighbors, I let people merge in front of me whilst in traffic, I try not to talk on the phone in public. But the problem with being a decent person is that the more decent you are, the more people expect you to be decent to them. It starts with something as small as a wave, and then a hello, and then small talk at the mailbox, and then you are expected to pick up your neighbor’s newspaper whilst he is out of town (nevermind you also being out of town, so you drive hither and yon to make sure your neighbor’s newspaper is properly hidden). It all stems from my inability to say no to requests. While I have developed the ability to say no to my sister when she requests ludicrous things, I have a hard time turning down others’ requests.
And so I was driving back from my parents’ home in San Jacinto. And while we are relatively close to one another, I still have to drive a very dangerous mountain pass to get to from their place to mine. This is an easy feat when wide awake, and well rested, but after staying late at my parents’ home so that I can watch a TV show, and sleeping on a couch, I had difficulties staying awake.
After making my way through the canyon, I finally made it back to my apartment where I was more than excited to instantly pass out into the loving embrace of my bed (it does have an embrace due to the fact that my bed used to be my parents’ and there is an indent of where my father used to sleep. This indent is inescapable, and sucks me into it no matter how hard I resist).
After getting my things from my truck, I started to walk over to my apartment where I see a small figure darting around the stairwell, hiding behind my neighbor’s barbecue. My initial thought was that it was one of the neighborhood kids experimenting with pot under my apartment, but as I came closer, the child like figure started to look older. She was hunched over, and would peek her head out from behind the stairs, like she was expecting somebody.
My mother had already scared me earlier about strangers in poorly lit places. And while I made no big deal of her urgings of me finding a gas station with proper lighting, I now was scared that my mother had predicted that I would be confronted in the dark, and promptly mugged for all that I had on me: two pairs of dirty jeans, a T-shirt, a phone, and my moccasins. I was about ready to run up the stairs to my apartment and quickly unlock my door, just moments before the stranger could catch me and decapitate me, when I realized that the person hiding behind the stairs was my downstairs, Asian neighbor.
She came up to me and asked for my phone, explaining that her son had left her there with her bags inside the apartment, so she didn’t have her keys and she had been locked outside for an hour already, where she had made refuge from the wind behind the stairs and was resourceful enough to use the neighbor’s barbecue as a heat source. I gave her my phone and when she saw that I was going to wait there for my phone, she turned the other direction and started speaking Cantonese so I wouldn’t understand what was going on. But from what I heard, she was going to be stuck outside another half hour because her son was at Costco. She gave me back my phone, and I thought that maybe I would do the right thing and invite her up to my apartment, but then I was too tired to care anymore, said I was sorry for her plight, and left her in the bitter cold.
And this is where I damn my parents for teaching me to be a decent person. Because I went upstairs, hopped into my pajamas, laid down, and I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about my Asian neighbor. The very neighbor whose son plays loud music constantly, that floods my apartment. The neighbor that cooks the smelliest of fish, that permeates my walls. The neighbor that smokes constantly, so that my apartment smells like an ashtray. Angry at myself for having a conscience, I looked outside to see that she was still locked out.
I went downstairs and before I could even offer for her to come up into my apartment, she was already up the stairs. “Do you have tea? I would like some tea very much.” She then plopped down on my futon and started feeling around in her pockets for something. Distracted, trying to prepare tea for this stranger, I didn’t realize that she was pulling out her cigarettes, and when I looked over at her to ask what kind of tea she wanted, I saw that she was trying to light up.
“Oh, you can’t smoke in here. I don’t smoke.” She looked at me and cocked her head to the side like she didn’t understand what I was saying. “I don’t smoke. You can’t smoke in my apartment.”
This was the beginnings of her frustrations with me. “But it smells like smoke in here. You quitting?” It’s surprising that I could even understand what she was saying, being that she had a very heavy accent that was not made clearer by the cigarette that she still had inbetween her lips.
“No, the apartment just smells like smoke because all of the neighbor’s smoke. Maybe even the last tenant, too. But you just can’t smoke in here.” She took the cigarette out and just held it in her hands for a second. before crushing it into a little tobacco ball, which she then held out for me to come and get, and then throw away. I never knew that Asians could be such drama queens, but this Asian certainly was. A diva, even.
I brought her a teacup with water and then put out all the tea bags I had in my possession. She looked over each one, then opened them, one by one, and smelled them. “These aren’t tea. Do you have tea?” I looked at her, confused, not because she said that I didn’t give her tea, but because she was making such a fuss in a stranger’s home, who through the generosity of his heart, let a poor, cold, old stranger into his home and tried to make her comfortable.
“That’s all I got. I just drink herbal tea.” She looked back at the tea bags, scrunched her bratty, little Asian face, and put her teacup on the side table. This would have been enough to let me know that she no longer wanted tea, but with her love for dramatic flair, she decided to then push the teacup to the far side of table, until it was the furthest possible distance away from her.
Completely fed up with her disregard for my saintly generosity, I decided I would call up the apartment managers and get them to come out and unlock her door because I was apt to kick this woman down the stairs of my apartment, where her son would find her broken at the base of the stairs.
The apartment managers informed me that there would be a fee that my neighbor would have to pay, and when I told my neighbor that, she said that she would prefer to just wait than pay five dollars to get into her apartment. And so I relayed the message to the management company. It may not have been the right message, but I relayed a message back to them. “Yeah, her pills are inside of the apartment, and she is feeling a little faint, think you could just let her in without the fee, because she doesn’t have money to pay it. I really don’t want her to pass out in my apartment without her pills.” Reluctant, they said they would be down in a few minutes to unlock her door. And the moment they hung up the phone was the moment that I kicked that Asian out of my apartment, locked the door, and went fast asleep.
I lied, I felt anger, and I may have called her mean names under my breath when I was ushering her out, but I have learned my lesson: when you try to be a decent human being, you receive no reward and must deal with mean, indecent people who don’t appreciate your generosity or tea.
And so I was driving back from my parents’ home in San Jacinto. And while we are relatively close to one another, I still have to drive a very dangerous mountain pass to get to from their place to mine. This is an easy feat when wide awake, and well rested, but after staying late at my parents’ home so that I can watch a TV show, and sleeping on a couch, I had difficulties staying awake.
After making my way through the canyon, I finally made it back to my apartment where I was more than excited to instantly pass out into the loving embrace of my bed (it does have an embrace due to the fact that my bed used to be my parents’ and there is an indent of where my father used to sleep. This indent is inescapable, and sucks me into it no matter how hard I resist).
After getting my things from my truck, I started to walk over to my apartment where I see a small figure darting around the stairwell, hiding behind my neighbor’s barbecue. My initial thought was that it was one of the neighborhood kids experimenting with pot under my apartment, but as I came closer, the child like figure started to look older. She was hunched over, and would peek her head out from behind the stairs, like she was expecting somebody.
My mother had already scared me earlier about strangers in poorly lit places. And while I made no big deal of her urgings of me finding a gas station with proper lighting, I now was scared that my mother had predicted that I would be confronted in the dark, and promptly mugged for all that I had on me: two pairs of dirty jeans, a T-shirt, a phone, and my moccasins. I was about ready to run up the stairs to my apartment and quickly unlock my door, just moments before the stranger could catch me and decapitate me, when I realized that the person hiding behind the stairs was my downstairs, Asian neighbor.
She came up to me and asked for my phone, explaining that her son had left her there with her bags inside the apartment, so she didn’t have her keys and she had been locked outside for an hour already, where she had made refuge from the wind behind the stairs and was resourceful enough to use the neighbor’s barbecue as a heat source. I gave her my phone and when she saw that I was going to wait there for my phone, she turned the other direction and started speaking Cantonese so I wouldn’t understand what was going on. But from what I heard, she was going to be stuck outside another half hour because her son was at Costco. She gave me back my phone, and I thought that maybe I would do the right thing and invite her up to my apartment, but then I was too tired to care anymore, said I was sorry for her plight, and left her in the bitter cold.
And this is where I damn my parents for teaching me to be a decent person. Because I went upstairs, hopped into my pajamas, laid down, and I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about my Asian neighbor. The very neighbor whose son plays loud music constantly, that floods my apartment. The neighbor that cooks the smelliest of fish, that permeates my walls. The neighbor that smokes constantly, so that my apartment smells like an ashtray. Angry at myself for having a conscience, I looked outside to see that she was still locked out.
I went downstairs and before I could even offer for her to come up into my apartment, she was already up the stairs. “Do you have tea? I would like some tea very much.” She then plopped down on my futon and started feeling around in her pockets for something. Distracted, trying to prepare tea for this stranger, I didn’t realize that she was pulling out her cigarettes, and when I looked over at her to ask what kind of tea she wanted, I saw that she was trying to light up.
“Oh, you can’t smoke in here. I don’t smoke.” She looked at me and cocked her head to the side like she didn’t understand what I was saying. “I don’t smoke. You can’t smoke in my apartment.”
This was the beginnings of her frustrations with me. “But it smells like smoke in here. You quitting?” It’s surprising that I could even understand what she was saying, being that she had a very heavy accent that was not made clearer by the cigarette that she still had inbetween her lips.
“No, the apartment just smells like smoke because all of the neighbor’s smoke. Maybe even the last tenant, too. But you just can’t smoke in here.” She took the cigarette out and just held it in her hands for a second. before crushing it into a little tobacco ball, which she then held out for me to come and get, and then throw away. I never knew that Asians could be such drama queens, but this Asian certainly was. A diva, even.
I brought her a teacup with water and then put out all the tea bags I had in my possession. She looked over each one, then opened them, one by one, and smelled them. “These aren’t tea. Do you have tea?” I looked at her, confused, not because she said that I didn’t give her tea, but because she was making such a fuss in a stranger’s home, who through the generosity of his heart, let a poor, cold, old stranger into his home and tried to make her comfortable.
“That’s all I got. I just drink herbal tea.” She looked back at the tea bags, scrunched her bratty, little Asian face, and put her teacup on the side table. This would have been enough to let me know that she no longer wanted tea, but with her love for dramatic flair, she decided to then push the teacup to the far side of table, until it was the furthest possible distance away from her.
Completely fed up with her disregard for my saintly generosity, I decided I would call up the apartment managers and get them to come out and unlock her door because I was apt to kick this woman down the stairs of my apartment, where her son would find her broken at the base of the stairs.
The apartment managers informed me that there would be a fee that my neighbor would have to pay, and when I told my neighbor that, she said that she would prefer to just wait than pay five dollars to get into her apartment. And so I relayed the message to the management company. It may not have been the right message, but I relayed a message back to them. “Yeah, her pills are inside of the apartment, and she is feeling a little faint, think you could just let her in without the fee, because she doesn’t have money to pay it. I really don’t want her to pass out in my apartment without her pills.” Reluctant, they said they would be down in a few minutes to unlock her door. And the moment they hung up the phone was the moment that I kicked that Asian out of my apartment, locked the door, and went fast asleep.
I lied, I felt anger, and I may have called her mean names under my breath when I was ushering her out, but I have learned my lesson: when you try to be a decent human being, you receive no reward and must deal with mean, indecent people who don’t appreciate your generosity or tea.
