White Picket Fences, $5 Tik-Toks, and 3 AM Fung-Shui

I know people always say the grass is greener on the other side, but it is my firm belief that the grass is definitely greener on the other side of the white picket fence. By that I mean that, after two years, I'm sick of living in an apartment building. I WANT A HOUSE ALREADY!

Unfortunately, our financial circumstances do not allow us to buy a house at this time. Hence, we are stuck in an apartment for the time being. And I know that in these tough economic times, we should feel lucky to have jobs and a roof over our heads.

But that doesn't mean that I can't still bitch and moan. At this moment, I am sitting at the bar in Pizzeria Uno's with my laptop on borrowed Wifi and a glass of $4.99 Tik-Tok chardonnay. That alone should make you feel sorry for me. You will find out why I am here in just a few moments, depending on how fast a reader you are.

Without further ado, I present to you:

       The Top Five Reasons Why Living in an Apartment Building Royally Blows

1. The Shower

You know the Katy Perry song "Hot 'N Cold"? Well, I truly believe it was written not about a fickle lover but about an apartment building shower head. Katy must have had some doozies in her day before she hit it big. She knows what I'm talking about.

You turn on the water. You wait about thirteen hours for it to heat up to a bearable temperature. You step in, thinking, "Finally, a warm, relaxing shower after a long day at work." You enjoy it for exactly two seconds when suddenly......YOWZERS!!!!! It feels like you just stepped through the seventh gate of hell. Even the Bible says that the devil takes the form of a snake, and what's more snake-like than a shower head?

At one point it got so bad that I heard Dave wrestling with the devil himself behind the shower curtain, pleading, "Why can't you just be normal?!"

2. The Predetermined Cable Provider

Okay, you've read this far, so now you deserve to know the truth. After the NBA strike that truncated the season, Dave and I, and possibly Carmelo Anthony's mother, are the only people left in the country that have any interest in watching the Knicks. After the strike ended and the NBA decided to stop screwing the fans, MSG and Time Warner Cable seemed to pick up where the NBA left off. More billion-dollar corporations that don't give a rat's behind about the common fan. But I digress.

Guess who does have MSG? That's right, you sly dog. Pizzeria Uno's. And it's right across the street. And they have cheap, decent wine. And $5 20-ounce Killian's. And free Wifi. Okay, that's too many sentences that begin with "and." My students would be disappointed. But my point is, before all you hipsters out there  scorn corporate conglomerate food chains, know the facts.

But all those five-buck drinks do add up. Viewing Knicks games is still costing us money. And it's easy to blame MSG, but my landlord is more accessible. So I'll blame her.

3. Inattentive "Handy"-Men

Stressful showers and missed Knicks losses (yeah, there have been a lot of them) are small potatoes compared to the time Dave and I woke up in a waterbed. The people above us must have lost a battle with their shower head and we got the brunt of it. The last thing you want to be woken up by is your spouse asking you, "Honey, why is the bed wet?" There's really no good answer to that question.

So we told Sammy the super--by the way, I don't know what genius came up with that title--whose initial solution was to tell us, "Maybe it'll just go away on its own."  Spoiler alert--it didn't. Time heals all wounds, but not all leaks. After three weeks of chasing Sammy, he came up with a slightly better solution. Use the packaging tape we had lying around the house from our moving days to patch it up. For the time being, it's holding, but if they give us shit about our security deposit when we do finally move, I'm not having it.

4. The Rent Never Comes Out

Our landlord, no joke, owns like three-quarters of Bay Ridge. In short form, she's a rich bitch. So I don't understand why the Donald Trump of Brooklyn can't hire some decent CPAs that make sure our rent check gets cashed within a reasonable amount of time. Our rent is due on the first of the month. It is rare if it comes out of our account before the fifteenth. We have considered telling her we have to suddenly move out of the country in order to get out of our lease, but we're too afraid that the next apartment we rent will belong to her too.

5. The Noise Upstairs

Our illustrious upstairs neighbors have been the source of our chagrin in more ways than one. There's the aforementioned leak, which I really can't blame them for since humans are basically powerless against forces of evil. But their other offenses are certainly preventable. They seem to enjoy walking heavily in high-heeled boots and moving furniture often, especially at odd hours of the night. I have yet to meet these people, but apparently they are the kind of folk who enjoy fung-shui at 3:00 in the morning. My only conclusion? They must be of the dreaded hipster variety. They're the only kind of people who would be awake in the wee hours for lack of anything better to do in the morning.

I'm waiting for all you homeowners out there to tell me, "Wait unitl you have a mortgage to pay." Or, "An inattentive handyman is better than no handyman at all." Because I totally disagree. A mortgage is better than rent, hands down, because your money is actually going towards something rather than down the toilet. And I'll take the work of my husband's hands over "super" Sammy any day.

Maybe I should have tipped him at Christmas. Sigh. There's always next year.

Free (and HUGE) Glasses of Wine, Kidneys, and Archaic Neanderthal Grunts

The other night I had dinner at my parents' house. I have sung the praises of dinner at the folks' house before, something you don't truly appreciate until you move out come to the realization that they were right all along, you do have to pay for food, and money doesn't grow on trees (the horror).

So I'm minding my own business, eating my (free) dinner and on my second (free and HUGE) glass of wine when, according to my father, a tragedy occured.

I mmm-hmmmed him.

Let me explain.

He asked me to pass the bread. I did. He said, "Thank you." I said, "Mmm-hmm."

"She gave me the mmm-hmm," he said to my mother with disgust. She responded with a knowing chuckle.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"And she doesn't even know she did it!" he sighed. "It happens all the time nowadays. Someone holds the door for you, you say thank you, they say mmm-hmmm. What ever happened to 'You're welcome'? Is it so much trouble?"

"Oh. Sorry," I mumbled. Apparently this topic was something my dad, a recent retiree, had had the opportunity to mull over quite a bit. A few minutes later I passed a napkin to my mother and made sure to overemphasize my "YOU'RE WELCOME" after her "thank you", lest I be subjected to another one of my dad's rants that includes the word "nowadays."

Of course my dad was kidding; my manners as a grown woman are far from their concern now. But as I got to thinking about his point, I realized that there was some truth to it.

We accept tons of inadequate substitutions for the words you're welcome: don't mention it, no problem, sure, and of course, the dreaded mmm-hmm, technically not even a word but more of an archaic grunt suitable for Neanderthals.

How did all this start? Well, maybe it's like when Jerry Seinfeld said the magnitude of the favor you need is proportionate to the pause you take after asking the question, "Can you do me a favor?" Small pause, small favor. "Can you hand me that pencil?" Big pause..... big favor. "Can you watch my kids for the weekend?"

So maybe the mmm-hmms are okay as long as they're only in response to small favors like door-holding and pencil-passing. But what happens when they make their way over to the big ones, the life-changing events?

KEN: "Sam, buddy, you're a lifesaver. Thanks for donating your left kidney to me. I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for you." Breaks down in (very manly) tears.

SAM: Mmm-hmm. Continues reading newspaper.

And what about the in-between things, like when a waiter brings you your food? Of course you're going to say "thank you." And I've definitely gotten the "mmm-hmm" from them before. And now that I think about it, it does kind of irk me. Want to address me like a caveman? Maybe I'll tip like one.

So thanks to Dad, I'm trying to eradicate mmm-hmm from my vocabulary. Sometimes I'll catch myself doing it and quickly correct myself.

Even for door-holding and pencil-passing.

But for beer passing? That very big favor deserves a hearty "thank you." And an even heartier "you're welcome."