I could go into details, but they're just aggravating. Suffice it to say it's hard to reason with stupid, and harder to reason with crazy, and where stupid and crazy meet is a vast pit of pointless debate that also threatens the sanity of those not otherwise inflicted.
The fence has been trimmed. Also, regarding the manager: I hate her. I didn't quite storm out, but I civilly but firmly made the point that I wasn't happy and didn't let her off the hook as easily as I normally would have.
After said irritating confrontation, I went home and hacked at the fence with a kitchen knife in a fairly violent but productive manner and wondered why this sticking up for myself thing didn't work out. I was right that they'd screwed up by telling me I could have it, I explained everything very clearly, and I offered a reasonable alternative-- me cutting it down and them taking the $65 I'd spent unnecessarily when they told me I could get it off my July rent. Why didn't this work? I hacked some more.
Then the super nice maintenance guy walked up. He offered to help me with my chopping, or to let me try his tools (which actually worked less well than the kitchen knife), and we had a good chat about what a heinous heinous scumbag with no people skills the office lady is. Then he said he and the other maintenance guy (who were all there at the time) thought I was right, and he offered to hook us up with new lights or something for our apartment so that I get something nice and don't come out behind from the money I spent on the fence. I think I'm going to try to get us new faucets, since ours are gross. Anyway, if I'd just taken the fence down and not said anything, I wouldn't have gotten sweet apartment stuff, so yay.
After he left, the guys from the auto place nearby began their daily parade to the grass to eat their lunches and blast loud music from their cars. (Normally I hate these people, but today they are my friends.) In turn, each of them stopped and asked me why I was taking my awesome fence down, and each time that I explained they voiced their anger on my behalf. My favorite was when one of them went on a rant about our nation, including walking in circles and waving his arms wildly. "They can't do that to you! This is f***ing America! We can have fences if we want to! That's why we live in America!" Wow, auto guy, wow.
So I get new apartment stuff and received the support of a half dozen people I don't really know today, and I also had the satisfaction of not being a total pushover. The moral of the story? I'm a good person and deserve to be treated well. If I stick up for myself in a reasonable way, then even when I lose, I win.
Take that, world.
Labels: rants
