• Home
  • Archive
  • About
  • Awards & Media
  • Contact
    • Facebook
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Courting Destiny

  • Courting Classics
  • Fiction
  • Mainstream Media
  • New York Stories
  • My Parents
  • Mental Health
  • N. Myrtle Beach

Sign Up For My Weekly Newsletter!

The Bitch in the Penthouse

November 3, 2005 By pia

I have good manners; some people think that is the best thing about me and they may be right. I’m not warm and cuddly; never have been. But I’m gracious.

My building’s considered a big deal building, according to both The Times and New York The location’s perfect

The first time I walked in to the lobby eight years ago last summer I knew I had found my home.

It’s not a friendly building but people always say hello to each other; sometimes we talk. I tend to become very social in elevators and laundry rooms for reasons that mystify me. I will always hold the elevator door open for somebody coming from the street or mailroom. It’s just polite though some people become impatient because I hold for housekeeper’s.

Nobody in my building has a cleaning person; the building staff has to say “housekeeper.” It’s a socio-economic thing, I think, though my building is in the heart of the Upper West Side. We’re all pinko-liberals.

It’s less than two months until Christmas so the staff is on best behavior. On Monday our mail wasn’t delivered until after 8PM; can’t blame the mailman. We all get a lot of junk mail, catalogs, magazines and bills. Only children get personal mail.

I didn’t get my mail on Monday. On Tuesday, I carried 27 pieces of mail in my hands, because I didn’t know what was important or not, and the mailroom isn’t conducive to lingering. We do have gigantic mailboxes; and the doormen hold our mail when we are away. Achieved my goal of getting more mail than my dad who would be away three weeks and get two post office boxes filled with mail, a long time ago. But it doesn’t count because his was real mail.

I walked into the elevator, smiled at the very coarse and common looking woman who bought the penthouse and asked if she would please hit “9.” I know she heard; it’s a regulation size mahogany elevator that frequently breaks down and even more frequntly jolts up and down.

Little Luce still loves to jump to it when we’re alone in the elevator, and she’ll be fifteen, is almost 5’10” and stunning. She’s in a class by herself. But she’s a kid sometimes still. Enough nice stuff.

The bitch pretended not to hear me. I had to press the button yet hold the mail; it was awkward but I did it. When I got out of the elevator, the mail went flying. Truly hope nothing went down the shaft. Waiting on a four figure check that I hoped would arrive yesterday.

Later she came into the building with her shopping bags from Citerella; mine were from Fairway. I shop in Citeralla but Fairway has more variety. Plus the highest rated sushi of any market in New York; including Citerella. The handyman, the hardest working person in the building was relieving the doorman. She was very flirtatious toward him. That’s not good in a building that has a history of perverts as super. The handyman looked very tired and very tired of her.

You can tell when she’s not putting her hands around his neck and body, she’s telling him to re do something. I know him well enough to know the look he gets when he really can’t stand the resident, and is too tired to pretend.

They talked until the elevator came. When we got on, I started to say something but she looked away.

Today I walked out of the mailroom to the elevator just as it was closing. Anybody else would have held it open. But not her. We only have one passenger elevator in each wing, and one service elevator which wasn’t working. She went all the way up to the penthouse….

Actually her behavior’s so boorish as to be funny; the really nasty part of me hopes that she and her husband have a very large mortgage and default on it. But we would have to pick up the pieces so the fantasy isn’t even fun.

Filed Under: New York Stories Tagged With: New York Stories

« Boston Legal and the war in Iraq
More about Boston Legal, and Bring it on! »

Comments

  1. Library Lady says

    November 3, 2005 at 9:31 am

    You are reminding me of what I miss LEAST about life in the big city!

  2. cooper says

    November 3, 2005 at 9:37 am

    There are people like that everywhere , they are just miserable inside or really insecure like a high school bully.

  3. BeckEye says

    November 3, 2005 at 1:24 pm

    Yeah, you have to just laugh those kinds of people off and thank your lucky stars that you’re not one of the miserable ones. Some people just aren’t happy unless they’re being unhappy, and trying to make everyone else the same.

  4. Ally says

    November 3, 2005 at 4:19 pm

    I just don’t get that kind of behaviour. It seems so wierd – what can someone possibly gain from deliberately not being pleasant to others?

  5. supermom_in_ny says

    November 3, 2005 at 4:45 pm

    She sounds like a very sad and lonely individual. The type of person that has stopped believing their distorted perception of reality (that people like them for them and not their status or wealth) and has become bitter with the world. I think she is sad because she is probably not as lucky as you are to have real friends. I know, I sometimes give people too much of a “benefit of the doubt”, it must be my bleeding heart personality?…

  6. supermom_in_ny says

    November 3, 2005 at 4:47 pm

    You know what? She might me intimidated by you?! I know, I am speculating and over analyzing…

  7. actonbell says

    November 3, 2005 at 8:04 pm

    I wished I lived around Pinko-liberals, but anyway–I work with miserable people, and I sympathize with you, extremely! At least the boorish behavior gives us something to make fun of in our blogs:) It doesn’t make it any less maddening, though.

  8. Bone says

    November 3, 2005 at 8:57 pm

    Am I the only one who was reminded of two different Seinfeld episodes here? (Yeah, probably.)

    You could do like Kramer did in “The Kiss Hello” and put up pictures and names of everyone in the lobby, to make the building friendlier.

    He also went down to the post office to have his mail “stopped” in The Junk Mail episode 🙂

  9. QueenBitch says

    November 3, 2005 at 9:30 pm

    I’m with Supermom…I think this woman is intimidated by you. She is obviously weak and needs superficial self-assurance.

    I love the post by Bone! lol If it were me, in the situation, what would I do? hmmm I would probably pull out all my womanly superpowers and intimidate her more than she ever thought imaginable, as graciously as possible, of course. But then…well, I’m bitchy that way. 😉

    Just keep being your fabulous self and know that this poor woman has issues that are shallow and beneath you.

  10. dan says

    November 3, 2005 at 11:02 pm

    There was something in there, Pia, that’s a bit of brilliance… that you knew it was home when you walked in.

    I’ve never chosen an apartment or home or car without walking in or sitting in it. And the first time you do, you know it’s the one you want. It’s like the pairing was meant to be.

    Of course, anything for which we spend that much or use that often should speak to us more clearly than that new kitchen utensil.

  11. Jason says

    November 4, 2005 at 4:07 am

    I’ve never understood this whole self-absorption thing some folks have. How hard is it to realize that somebody needs help pushing a button?!? And the groping the handyman thing sounds like this neighbor likes to play the “I’ll play with you, regardless of what you think” game.

  12. trine says

    November 4, 2005 at 5:10 pm

    people like that really turn my stomach! yuk! what is their problem???

  13. roberto says

    November 7, 2005 at 10:50 pm

    What an awesome blog — the most interesting, provocative and hippest around. How about turning this all into a book?

Search for your favorite post!

Follow Me!

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Sign up Now!

Sign up now and get my latest posts delivered right to your inbox!

About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

Categories

Archives

All material contained herewith is owned by Pia Savage, LLC

Copyright © 2021 Courting Destiny · Designed by Technology-Therapist