One of the most enlightening moments in my educational career came to me when discussing things that cause harm to the body. My professor lectured for nearly thirty minutes about this “one thing” that can change our brain wave patterns, cause migraine and vision problems, disrupt our sleep schedules, wear our teeth down by grinding, causing jaw pain. This “thing” damages our hearts and lungs. This “thing” creates muscle tension in almost every part of the body, most notably shoulders neck and back. It leads to serious digestive problems, such as ulcers and can even mimic more serious conditions by having symptoms such as chest pain and shortness of breath. This “thing” that can cause this catastrophic destruction of the body is chronic stress. Yes, dear readers, chronic stress is quite possibly the most damaging force to the mind body and soul. Andiepants recognizes that a small amount of stress during short periods of time can have a positive, motivating, invigorating effect on the body. Consider the example of the college student who writes an entire 10 page paper the night before its due (yep, that was me circa 2005 or so). In those moments I existed solely on coffee and stress, practically electric with the energy and pressure that it created. Ah! Exciting!
The stress that I’m referring to, the one that will take you down faster than a speeding bus, is chronic stress. Stress day in, stress day out. Wake up stressed, experience your whole day with stress and go to bed stressed. In my andie-experience, one of the most efficient ways to fill your mind, body and soul with this damaging stress is to carry around anger. Anger, my dear readers, is a natural human emotion, one of most primitive and necessary emotions known to man. But when anger is harbored, its almost as if it becomes acidic and starts to eat away the mind, body and soul. It ferments within the soul and feeds on the light, positive, innocent, happy parts of you, making it all twisty and dark and cynical. Those who carry the burden of anger inflict a vast amount of unnecessary stress on the body, and make it more vulnerable to things like cancer, stroke or heart attack.
Over the last few years, I’ve tried to recognize when my stress level crosses over from the short term motivating stress into chronic stress. I’ve been pretty successful at this practice largely because I have resolved myself to let go of my anger, my grudges. Oh and I had some big fat grudges. Grudges that would cause me to obsess, to clench my teeth, shoulders and fists unconsciously. And I have been working so hard to let those go with some pretty positive results. I also try to be proactive about this and try to confront whatever it is that angers me, and come to some resolution or closure and move on, before I have to waste any further energy on it.
However, I am currently being challenged by a situation that makes me so angry, so absolutely infuriated, that I have a good feeling this grudge will be taking up residence in my mind, body and soul for quite some time. I better store up on positive energy and thoughts now, because this grudge is big and I’m sure it will get pretty hungry. In order to tell the story accurately, I will have to start at the beginning. It might get pretty lengthy so if you’re feeling tired, fidgety or just don’t really feel like reading today, I’d recommend closing the window now.
…. Still with me?
Ok. The beginning. My brother sister in law and adorable snookums smushy face nephew came to visit in the beginning of March. It was a great visit! Uncle Mike finally got to meet his nephew, and we spent so much quality time together. Brendan thoroughly enjoyed his stay in the desert and has already experienced more in his six months of life than most people. Go baby! Danny (andie sibling) has become very into geo caching, which is the practice of using a GPS to find hidden objects. The general idea of the geo caching is to locate and sometimes transport small objects, logging in the date, time and finder of the object. The day before my lovely family were scheduled to leave, Dan decided he was going to take a walk around town to find some local geocaches. My town is incredibly small, and Dan had absolutely no chance of getting lost, and so we bid him farewell. He returned approximately an hour later, with a long haired, medium sized dog trailing at his heels. Dan said that this dog had followed him for the better part of an hour, and that he had tried to implore him to “go home” several times. My neighbors who were outside working on their building declared that dogs choose their owners, and that we had a new member of the family. The provided us with a collar, leash and a bowl of dog food and said “good luck.” Also working outside at this point was our (now former) landlord,
Our landlord was in the bottom part of the building working. Even though there was no pet clause in our six month lease, we decided to be accommodating tenants and just check with him first. He assured us that we were able to keep the dog “for a few days, to find his owner, and after that, we would talk.” He also gave us a leash to use. How helpful. After tapping some of the local gossip lines, we discovered our little furball had an owner. We ended up meeting with the owner of BooBoo (his old name), who was a lovely man. He ended up coming inside for about an hour, sat down and had a beer with us, and explained that he was not home nearly enough to care for the dog. He appeared very affectionate and loving with BooBoo, but stated that if we were able to give him a good home, he would be happy to leave him with us.
And just like that, we had a dog. Mike and I always knew that our dogs would come to us this way, very organically and naturally. BooBoo was christened Scout Bounty-Hunter Mega-Tail Caggiano, or Scout for short. Lately, I’ve been calling him all kinds of variations of his name, such as Scoot, Scouty, Scouty McDoodle, Scoots, etc. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
A few days after the Wright family left New Mexico, we were lucky enough to have another visitor, our good friend Joe. But before we were able to enjoy our next visitor, the landlord called Mike to discuss the dog. We had seen the landlord at the apartment just three hours earlier, when he informed us he would need an additional security deposit for the dog. We agreed and figured the matter was settled. However, true to his incredibly passive aggressive nature, he felt more comfortable calling Mike on the phone to express his displeasure. He stated that he had “changed his mind and wanted the dog out by 5pm the next day.” Mike responded that there was no mention of pets in the lease, and the landlord became verbally abusive to Mike, stating that he “should be a man, and not to make Mike treat him like a child.” Mike, wisely, ended the conversation. We decided to try to put that big bit of ugliness behind us and enjoy our visitor for the weekend.
Joe arrived on Friday evening and we had a lovely Saturday day hike. This was Scout’s very first hike and we weren’t sure it was a good idea to let him off the leash at this point. So we put an extension of rope onto his leash, and attached it to the waistbelt of my pack. So for several hours, I had a dog, attached by a pseudo umbilical cord to my womb. Dog mama, indeed. Scout did fabulously on his hike, and we concluded Saturday with a delicious dinner and much fun. The next day, Mike, Joe, and Scoutypants decided to go to the park in the morning. I wasn’t feeling so fantastic, so I decided to stay behind and clean up the apartment. The landlord had informed us that he would like to show his brother our apartment in the afternoon, so I figured it might be nice to clean the place up a bit. I decided to walk to the market to buy some kitchen cleaner. I stepped out into a beautiful southwestern Sunday morning, and began to chat with my neighbor who was painting his building. Things seemed really great at the moment for andiepants, a beautiful day, a new dog, a man who loves me, a friend visiting. I had the world by the ass….
….until the landlord came charging out of his portion of the building and began screaming in my face. At first I felt bad for the old guy. He had sweat streaming down his face, his tiny ineffectual fists balled up by his sides, shaking uncontrollably. He stated that “we knew that we weren’t supposed to have a dog” and that “we were taking advantage of him.” He stated that he “didn’t want that fucking dog pissing and shitting all over his beautiful hardwood floors.” He threatened to bring me to court and informed me that “if I wanted to play dirty, he could play dirty.” He called me a “bitch” and said that “he didn’t care if I was from New York, he could bring me down.” This whole time, I was doing my best to wear my andietherapist face. You know the one. The impassive face that I use when six year olds are throwing temper tantrums (which essentially was what was happening). The stone face that communicates the message “I hear you, but am not going to engage with you when you’re like this.” After he halted for a moment in his rampage, I politely reminded him that there was no pet clause in the lease. He stated that there “was no lease”, to which I responded that we had a copy upstairs. I retrieved my copy of the lease, and presented it to him. At first, he attempted to tell me that “this was not his signature”. What? He then proceeded to rip up the lease (with great effort, mind you), into tiny bits. I’m sure he did it for effect, but it was a bit of overkill for me. I mean, the man is standing there, breathing like he had just spent 3 ½ minutes underwater, sweating, face red, hands shaking, tearing this lease up again, and again, fold, and tear, and repeat. At one point, it seemed like he was having so much trouble, that I was almost inclined to help him rip it, just so we could move on. I could have done without the theatrics, but hey, when children are rampaging, its best just to let them get it out. After the ripping was finished, he shoved all the shreds into this pocket and declared “no more lease.” At this point, I had to laugh. I mean, come on!! The landlord has obviously never learned the idea of object permanence…. Or photocopies..
The rampage didn’t last too much longer. There wasn’t much left to say, but before the “conversation” was over, he hurled a few more ridiculous threats at me, such as “he was going to contact Mike’s boss and report him.” When I inquired as to what he would be reporting him about, he said “oh you’ll find out.” I’m sure I will. Now this whole time, I had been treating him like one of my 5 year olds, who was having a major meltdown, humoring the sweating, huffing and puffing old man who thought he was intimidating and scaring me, but then he crossed a very bad line. The landlord looked me right in my eyes and hurled the following words at me: “I’m going to come up into your apartment every day at 3pm, and take pictures of that fucking dog pissing and shitting all over my floors, and if something happens to him, well.. that would be sad, wouldn’t it?”
Oh no you didn’t. Say what you want about me, hurl ineffectual threats and insults at me, but you DO NOT threaten my dog. At that moment, I thought it best to end the conversation, before I used words I regretted.
I was so proud of not having a reaction in front of the landlord, but once inside the safety of closed doors, I became very upset. I was so angry, afraid for Scout and horrified that I had just been verbally assaulted in this manner. I immediately called Mike and Joe home. Mike came flying home and confronted the landlord. The landlord looked my beautiful man in his face and stated: “I don’t know what she’s talking about. Nothing happened.” Oh well of course. Obviously, andiepants became so unexplainably bored that Sunday morning that I had to concoct this whole story, and then find someway to make myself incredibly upset as “proof.” I heard the landlord lie to Mike’s face from my upstairs window and began yelling at him to stop lying. The landlord decided to run away, which was a good choice, as I’m sure Mike had visions of destroying him.
So began the move. We decided that we were no longer able to stay in this apartment with his evil, vicious energy and within two days, we were largely moved out and into a house owned by a lovely couple in town. This lovely and generous couple is allowing Mike and I to stay in one of their homes that is on the market. On Monday morning, I filed a police report with the local Sheriff’s department to put this verbal assault on record. Over the next week and a half, we continued to move out of the apartment, and into our transitional house. We also looked at and submitted an offer on a house of our own. Andiepants and the rest of the Cagg fam is very happy to announce that we will be closing on our first house at the end of April.
But of course, the drama with the landlord was far from over. Oh, joy. We had finished moving out of the apartment, and cleaned the entire thing. Can I just tell you, reader friends, how hatefully bitter I was as I cleaned his apartment? Anyway, we contacted him so that we could return the keys and do a walk through. We met him on Saturday night right before a gallery opening in town. As I was walking up the building, I felt my heart start to race, and my hands start to tremble. Unconsciously, my body was gearing up for a fight. We entered the apartment and the landlord greeted Mike, and only Mike. Apparently, I no longer existed. During the walk through, I burned holes in his body with my furious eyes and he avoided looking at me with every fiber of his being. At the conclusion of the walk through, my loyal amazing almost husband turned to the landlord and declared that he owed me an apology and that it would help to smooth this whole episode over. and readers, do you know what the landlord said? He refused! I couldn’t believe it. Even though I had seen the landlord at his most hateful and vicious, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that given the opportunity, he would apologize in an attempt to rectify the situation. Apparently, I was giving this creature too much credit. He said “No Mike, I’d rather just move on and put this whole thing past me and not stir it up again.” Mike reminded him that we were trying to move on and get closure and apology was a necessary part of that. I then chimed in and asked “So you are not going to apologize for screaming and cursing at me?” I heard him mutter under his breath “never happened.” And he reiterated his position that he was not going to apologize. Right before we exited the apartment for the last time, Mike tried to give him one more chance. He reminded the landlord that we live in a very small town and an apology could make a world of difference in my future attitude toward him. Again, he refused.
Now, I pride myself on being a reasonable woman. I recognize that humans are fallible and make poor decisions sometimes. I accept that no one is perfect, and that sometimes we say things that we don’t mean, that might cross lines, hurt others, etc. However, I also have no respect for liars and cowards who refuse to apologize when they know they are in the wrong. Oh readers, I was on fire. I was literally burning with anger as I walked out of the apartment and into the lovely Southwestern evening. I had to take a little while to compose myself before being able to attend the gallery opening.
In the wake of these events, I need help in figuring out a way to manage these feelings. The landlord walked into the gallery opening about an hour after we had arrived, and I could feel his evil and vicious energy seeping into the room like an oily black cloud. I again burned holes in the back of his head with my eyes, and it was only out of respect for the lovely woman hosting the gallery opening that I didn’t make a gigantic scene in which I outed him as the devious liar and coward that he truly is.
I have some decisions to make. Part of me wants to tell this story a thousand times to every resident or possible resident in the town, to write into our local paper and make this abuse known. It feels as if he got away with someone and I hate that feeling. I want him to be held responsible for his actions. The fact that he has no qualms about attacking a lone woman, but then backs down to Mike says something about his character and soul. I’m not sure exactly what, but I am sure that the landlord is not an excellent husband or father. His actions show a clear disrespect and disregard for women and his bullying attitude portrays a man who is very unsure of himself and insecure in his abilities. I should pity him, but I’m too angry to do that.
Another, more compassionate, part of andiepants wants to let it go and let karma take care of it. Anyone who treats other humans this poorly, and has no qualms about being so viciously dishonest I’m sure will be dealt with in the appropriate fashion. I’m sure that he has no true happiness in his poor meaningless life and that his attack on me was precipitated not by my actions, but by his ineffective coping skills, conflict management and lack of simple people skills. Rather than harboring my intense anger, I should be able to recognize this poor soul for what he is, and hope that he makes a change in his life before its too late.
But readers, I’m not there yet. Until then, I will be doing a whole bunch of yoga and mediation in the hopes that I can eventually reconcile this assault. Any support and/or advice that you readers can throw my way would be greatly appreciated. I’m so happy to be back, and I apologize that my first entry in nearly a month has to be of such a negative tone, but I guess that’s life. Stay tuned for part 2.
Doing my best to be happy,
Andie.
