Mrs. Carbonell, the old woman who lives across the hall from us, has a sticker of the Virgin Mary on her front door. This is a marked departure from the mezuzahs that adorn the other doorways of our neighbors. Maybe it's the Catholic guilt in me, but every time I run into Mrs. Carbonell I imagine the steely glint in her eyes is all knowing and all disapproving.
She doesn't say much when we do run into each other, she in her housecoat as she takes out the trash, cigarette dangling from the fingers of her spindly arm. However Ms. K had a brief conversation with her when we first moved in. Turns out that old Mrs. Carbonell used to live in our apartment long ago. That is until she got robbed via the fire escape. (Thanks for sharing! Along with our broken smoke detector and dodgy electrical outlets, lord knows I'll be sleeping better at night!) But surely she's figured out by now that her new neighbors are lesbians, especially if she's quite aware that our apartment is a one bedroom.
And so every time I see that Virgin Mary sticker it says to me:
"Oh man, she's onto you!"
All I have to think about is that look in my neighbor's eye, all knowing and all disapproving.
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4 comments:
i definitely feel you on this one. our landlady looks at us the same exact way. she's from italy, in her 70s. we REALLY should have known when there was a crucifix in the entryway that this couldn't end well...the previous tenant in our apartment died of old age.
i can't tell if our landlady hates us more for the loud, frequent sex or the 5 am cat rumpus every morning.
we're planning on moving as soon as our lease is up.
did i mention she won't fix the falling apart bathtub??
good times.
When I was younger, I lived in a rooming house run by nuns. We had to notify them of overnight guests (women only, of course) in advance. After my then-girlfriend visited me, one of the sisters ask me (quite sweetly, actually) why my girlfriend hadn't used the cot they left by my door when she spent the night.
Whether or not I was going to hell before that conversation, I sure am headed there now...
Rouge, Ex nuns and other intensely Catholic ladies are just envious that you can be so open about your relationship with Ms. K.
Signed,
A 12 year veteran of Catholic school education and much wiser 50-something realist
We don't know if the old lady across the street from us hates us because we're gay, or just because we're under 50. My gf insists on waving at her every time she's out in her yard, and she's waved back exactly twice in two and a half years. If someone on the street is having a party and a guest parks in front of her house, she calls the cops. So I guess that's just the sort of person she is!
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