We Are Excellent Tenants

The evening started off weird when, on the subway, headed home, this vaguely European-looking guy cut a loud, long fart like he wasn't in public. Everyone on the car was fairly repulsed because, and not to be too crude here, but it sounded like a wet one and the smell certainly backed up that theory. The guy, He Who Unquestionably Dealt It, wasn't even phased. He kept on grooving to his iPod, oblivious, as we choked on his pungent wind.

When I got home, Girlfriend (who shall henceforth remain anonymous due to her teaching job) and I commiserated on our respective bad days and decided that a night of drinking was the only option worth exploring in our current frames of mind. She poured herself a pint glass of Irish cream and I began to work my way through a bottle of Bushmill's, one cup at a time. Somewhere between the first pour of liquor and the last bite of dinner, I switched from drinking my whiskey out of a glass to simply taking it straight out of the bottle, apparently forgetting that I'm not in college in anymore. Around 8pm, the scene was looking pretty much like this:

Then there was a knock at the door. What with all the subway farts and couples-style drinking, I'd kinda sorta forgotten that it was the first of the month and the Landlord was coming by to pick up the rent check. Girlfriend and I stagger, panicked, to our feet, and I realize two things, almost simultaneously:

1. I'm way drunker than I thought I was.

and...

2. I have no idea where my checkbook is.

We let him in and I say something along the lines of, "Shtay right here... checkbook... coming soon!!!" and I hightail it into my office to try and get my shit together, no easy task in my current polluted state. I stop, I take a deep breath... I focus... I realize that I've just left an open bottle of whiskey on the floor of my living room in full view of my landlord... I panic... I regain my focus... I manage, somehow, to locate my checkbook... I write the check, probably spelling my Landlord's name wrong and listing the date as "Blebruarrry 81, 207"... I rip it out, leaving a ragged, ripped edge on the top.

When I get back into the living room, Girlfriend and Landlord are talking about cooking. Girlfriend, actually, is doing a pretty heroic job of keeping up a steady stream of chatter as a smokescreen so her unsteady, shambling boyfriend can produce the check in his own sweet time. The details of their exchange are still (predictably) a little fuzzy, but I do remember this gem:

Landlord: Yeah, I do all the cooking and the cleaning. My wife doesn't really do any of that.
Girlfriend: (brightly) Well, at least she's pretty!

Awesome. I thrust the check into my Landlord's hand with a hearty, "Wellitwasgreattoseeyouhaveaniceeveninghahahaha!!!" and, finally, he leaves. Girlfriend and I collapse in a fit of nervous laughter and drunken sillies. As an encore, while reenacting my side of the story for my girlfriend's amusement, I manage to drive the palm of my right hand into the thumb of my left hand with enough force to jam the thumb like I'd just caught a major league fastball. And then I bit my tongue.

With the evening pretty much shot, we called it a night and both fell asleep/passed out before 9:30.

So. Moral of this story? The landlord comes on the first of the month, every month, and you should probably not be drunk when he shows up, even if he's cool with it.

DON'T BE THIS GUY: