In Which I Am an Invertebrate

When I was a little kid, my parents used to deploy time-honored parental tricks for having a conversation right in front of me without my knowing what they were talking about. They spelled things, as many parents do, but because of my father's great love of words, they also threw in the occasional fifty-cent word they thought I wouldn't know. One day, when I was probably in the first or second grade, my father referred to some enemy of theirs as an "invertebrate," and I yelled, "THAT MEANS HE HAS NO SPINE!" I think that was the end of their attempts to talk over my head.

I realized recently that I may be an invertebrate myself (probably because my mother has been screeching at me about this problem until the veins stand out in her neck). I've always been aware of a reluctance on my part to express my real feelings to friends or romantic companions in a direct way (passive-aggressiveness is no problem), and I'm trying to improve on that, but my recent revelations revolve around more mundane issues.

Specifically, I'm having some trouble with my apartment. I've been renting this apartment for about four and a half months now, ever since I moved here. It's an okay space in a terrific location for a very reasonable rent, so I'm loath to move out of it unless I were to buy something. The problem is that there are a few things wrong with the apartment. For instance, in early January, I noticed that the temperature on my oven's knob bore no relationship whatsoever to the temperature inside the oven, ruining all food. Also, one burner of the stove didn't work properly, and the stove liked to turn itself off and on at random. I would probably be dead now if I had a gas stove, but since it's electric, I just live in fear of burning down the building and destroying all my possessions. Getting this oven business resolved is not as easy as complaining to the landlord. The landlord has created an extra layer between himself and his tenants by establishing two married tenants of extremely long standing as his on-site troubleshooters. These troubleshooters are very nice people, but the wife has a day job, and neither one of them moves very quickly to address problems. That's why I find myself over two months later still with the same piece of shit oven (and no rent deduction to compensate me for my inability to bake).

My mother keeps pestering me to make more of a fuss about this oven. She's right in saying that, as a tenant, I probably have all the rights as against my landlord. However, I am hesitant to put my bitch face on about this because the aforementioned troubleshooters have been here for decades and decades and will be here long after I have departed, and I'd rather maintain a friendly relationship with them to make my own residence here more pleasant. So, I've been maintaining a facade of Job-like patience in the face of these oven trials despite my desire to tell everyone involved to go to hell and give me a rent reduction as well.

My irritation bubbled over this weekend when the lights in my bathroom stopped working. My bathroom is a time capsule dating back to the 1950s, and lighting is provided by two fluorescent bulbs flanking the mirror. Right after I moved in, the right bulb stopped working. I ignored it and soldiered on with one functional bulb until the left bulb finally my mother came to visit two weeks ago and marched me to the hardware store to replace the light bulbs. For a few days, my bathroom was aglow, and then the bulbs started working intermittently, and then they stopped working entirely.

I emailed the troubleshooters about this yesterday in connection with a question about my oven. The lady troubleshooter responded to the oven inquiry but ignored the lighting issue. I responded thanking her for the oven update and letting her know, as pleasantly as possible, that I want an electrician in my apartment in the next day or two to restore light. (I don't think that being willing to spend three or four days without light in the bathroom marks me as an unreasonable or high-maintenance tenant.) My mother thinks I need to basically kick down the troubleshooters' door and demand an electrician in my apartment at once, but I'm afraid to be identified as a problem tenant and have them not renew my lease at the end of the year. So, my plan is craftier. I'm going to wait until Tuesday, and if I haven't heard a definite time when an electrician will be repairing my problem, I'm going to take matters into my own hands and call someone.