This was a woman who I was dating earlier this year who (despite the fact that she was extremely beautiful and smart as hell) was a tremendous schlub. We were an excellent match -- for the seven or eight months we were going out, anyway.
We parted ways in June -- but on good terms.
"Max, you've got to see my apartment," she called me last weekend to say. (Her apartment looked a little like a war zone the last time I had been there.) "It's actually clean!"
So I moseyed over to her one-bedroom and took it in -- indeed, it was very neat and tidy. Except for one thing:
There was a hole in her bathroom ceiling.
And I don't mean a little hole. I mean an enormous gaping hole. You can see the beams and the floorboards in the apartment below. Little drops of water (I hope it was water) are dripping down onto the bathroom floor. Flies are circling.
"Uh..." I start. "What's with the ceiling?"
"Oh, I told you about that, didn't I? I came home on Thursday and the bathroom was like this."
Max looks at schlubette. Looks back at bathroom.
"Uh, this is sort of the thing you should take care of. Right away."
The schlubette nods -- but knowing her and her lazy habits, Max decides to plant himself on her sofa.
"Right now, schlubette," Max says. "I'm not moving until you call your landlord."
"But it's Labor Day weekend," the schlubette whined. "Nobody's going to come and fix it until next week."
No, Max explains to her, this is something landlords can -- and must -- take care of immediately. "Call him now."
She looks somewhat embarrassed.
"I'm not sure I have my landlord's number," she says.
Indeed -- she did not have her landlord's phone number. She had an address. A lease. A name. But no phone number.
"Well, let's call information," Max says, summoning all his investigative reporter instincts.
The landlord (or, the guy who signed her lease, anyway) was not listed. Tried Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island. Zip.
The schlubette looked perfectly ready to give up.
"Schlubette, we can just knock on a door. I'm sure that every single one of your neighbors has their landlord's phone number. You're the only freak who doesn't."
Indeed, the first door I went to had a perfectly cheerful woman who gave me the landlord's number (and mobile number!) and within minutes of calling the landlord a super appeared and began patching the roof.
I stand humbled before you, schlubette. You are the schlubbiest!!!
