Sometimes I feel like society is leading, not to say coercing, cattle prodding or Clockwork Orange, eye toothpick, soundbyte bombarding, the whole works of us down the no speed limit road to complete phoniness. What has lead me to such an ominous introduction? Anyone who has ever gone apartment shopping in Victoria would probably guess, “Hey, it sounds like you went apartment shopping in Victoria.” Indeed I did. And what was it about apartment shopping in Victoria that brought us to this blog entry? Was it the fact that prices are so artificially inflated, and folks are completely fine with charging their fellow man 700 dollars every month for a shithole that was probably built BEFORE Victoria was queen? Well not exactly. Was it that the reason they are fine with ripping off their fellow Canadians is because everyone else is doing it? Well that’s getting closer to it.
I think the thing that makes my breakfast curdle is when otherwise normal and good people are able to tune in to the vibes of society and without being formally taught, they can rattle things off like, “Well 700 dollars is fair market value for this place.” “Fair market value.” A useful little capitalist euphemism. For people seeking fair value, if you give them fair market value they might just believe it’s the same thing. Where did they learn this? Was it from TV? Was it from business school? Or was it what the asshole who sold THEM the place said to THEM?
But no, we’re really not at the heart of the issue yet. The dirty, ugly gremlin inside most of us that really bothered me. The thing that rarely shows itself plainly enough to be identified. And it’s going to be tough for me to try to flesh it out here, believe you me! It just boggles the mind the genius it takes to systematically implant it into a society!
I work 70 hours to pay 700 dollars of rent. Considering my 42-hour week, minus taxes, that’s pretty much a paycheck for me. But I try not to bring that up while talking to the prospective landlord who is already cautiously pessimistic about my natural, unaffected syntax and intonation. I know deep inside that he/she would be more at ease if I put on that, “Have a GREAT day, or else!”, smiley, giggly, corny joke, patio furniture salesman deportment, but at least I don’t bring myself down to THAT! The salary, however, remains secret though the landlord sends out feelers. “So, when were you looking to move in?” Don’t say, “When I can save up enough money for a damage deposit,”!!! “Well, that depends on how much it will cost me.” DOH! That’s just as bad! Damn, I’m bad at this! Now the landlord KNOWS I’m not a man of great means, able to draw on my hefty savings or liquidate some stock to make a rent payment on this 700-dollar a month concrete block that I doubt has functioning plumbing.
I see some pep drain from the landlord like I just hit him with a George Foreman telephone pole jab that punctured a hole in him and caused drops of liquid gold to drip out. He then asks, “Do you have a family, or…?” There really IS no good answer for THIS question. The landlord might as well just let me jump on him and hit him with his own hands and say, “Why are you punching yourself? Stop punching yourself!” See, I’m not about to say I have four kids and a wife that I want to move into a place not even big enough for me. But then I don’t want to tell the truth and say I’m single, which, let’s face it, he won’t believe anyway. Whether he does or he doesn’t believe it, he’ll know that I don’t have that societal shackle tying me to a city, a job and, yes, an apartment. So I’m not gonna last long. I try to make the best of it. “I’m single but that could always change.” Though it’s the truth I feel a little bit like a sellout having said that.
An ambulance goes by with siren blaring. It’s then that I notice the volume of the traffic. I don’t mean amount, I mean the decibel level. It’s almost magnified by the shape of the concrete apartment. I look up to the top floor balconies, (3rd floor), and see two tenants, a guy and a gal, having a drink and a smoke. I’m pretty sure it’s not tobacco. This makes me think, “Cool! At least there seem to be normal people here. On the other hand, I’ll be living BELOW them. I hope those aren’t energy drinks they’re swilling to counteract the drowsy effects of the pot.”
I’m at another location now having told the previous landlord, to my eternal shame, “I’ll get back to you.” I think we both know that’s not gonna happen. The place I’m at NOW is the cheapest on my list. I’ve called maybe three times and reached an answering machine message that says, “ALEX! Beeeep.” I was caught off guard by it the first time and left this message, “Uh, oh, hi, I’m looking for an apartment. Well obviously. And like the price of yours. I’m wondering if it’s still available. If it is my number is, uh, oh, uh… I’ll call you back.” And then before I flipped my phone closed and open again to check what my phone number actually IS, “FUCK!” So I think he got THAT as part of the message too. I called back and gave, uh, Alex my phone number but he didn’t call me. Whether it was the curse word, the incoherent answering machine message or something else I couldn’t say. These are the guessing games we play when we try to portray ourselves as and/or find the perfect tenant.
I was pretty sure that even in the one word message I detected an accent. Perhaps that was WHY it was only one word of English. And, “Alex”, is that English? So anyway, I walk to the address on the newspaper ad. It’s a dinghy, greyish pink block of apartments just off the main street in town but in a neighbourhood that made me glad for the daylight during which I visited it. It had one of those old intercoms that almost never work with one button corresponding to a name usually in those plastic interchangeable letters just in case the tenant changes. I saw names like Lee, Chan, Wang, Liu, Lee, Chin, Lee… and just couldn’t imagine they had enough of those plastic letters for MacCannell on the list. This place was for 537 a month. That’s MUCH cheaper than anything else I’ve seen so I thought I’d give it one more try. I called “Alex” and surprisingly got an answer. I told him I was at the apartment and would like to take a look if it was still available. He said, “Alraydy sote! Alraydy sote!” I was looking at the intercom and saw a blank spot so was skeptical that it was “alraydy sote” but I’m not going to force a non-Canadian into Canadian behaviour. If he wants to favour his own countrymen, I suppose that’s okay.
I then walked to the location of one last place I wanted to check. It was another 700-dollar apartment. The ad said it was at the corner of Cook and Hillside. So I get to that corner and call the number. I can hardly hear the guy on the phone because it’s a very loud intersection. “HEY! I’M LOOKING FOR AN APARTMENT. IS YOURS STILL AVAILABLE?” The guy says, “Ummmm… maybeeee…” “SORRY I’M AT THE LOCATION NOW AND IT’S PRETTY LOUD,” and hard to fake a nice-sounding tenant voice. “What location is that?” “THE CORNER OF COOK AND HILLSIDE.” “Oh, no, that’s not where my apartment is. They give that as an approximate location for safety reasons. So can we set up a meeting for tomorrow?”
Oh I set up that meeting. I was friendly and accommodating. Even giggled a few times and sold him a nice reclining foldaway deck chair set at fair maket value. But I knew there was no way I was keeping that appointment.
Then, after all that, I went Christmas shopping.
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