The time I forgot rent was due.

Ugh.  So in the midst of my running all about town with le boss, I absolutely lost track of what day it was.  Adding to that, it was in the high 90s and even sometimes the low 100s on a few days this week here in LA, so if you had told me it was July, I would've probably had to think about it for a full thirty seconds before I was able to land my focus back to the here and now and tell you that No, it's actually the first week of October.  

And with the first week of every month, we all have to send in that pesky rent check.  I had had my rent check written for over a week and left it sitting on my kitchen counter, waiting for the 1st of October to roll around so that I could drop it in the box in my building.

Well, with all of the things going on in my brain, I completely spaced on actually placing the rent check into the rent box.  It's three steps outside my door - it's easy as pie for me to submit my rent each month.  And yet, I still spaced.

In my building, we have until the 3rd of the month at 6 pm to hand our check over to the manager or place it in the infamous box.  

Around 430 pm on the 3rd, I finally snapped into the here and now, realizing that it was the 3rd of October, with an hour and a half left to be able to get home to submit my check, and I was two hours south of home, in an appointment with a client.  It was physically impossible for me to get that check from my kitchen counter into the hands of my building manager.  

There was nothing I could do at that point, so I made a mental note to speak to the manager in the morning and ask her what my late penalty was, and I brushed the worry to the side so that I could focus on my work. 

610 pm.  Phone rings.  It's the Russian building manager.  I pick up and immediately speak, "Hi Klarissa, I am so sorry that my check is not in.  I am not at home or anywhere near home, but I have the check ready for you.  I will put it in first thing tonight, just let me know what the late fee is and I will pay that also.  I really apologize, it was an honest mistake."  

And then the wrath.  She fussed, and she raised her voice, and she complained that I was making her work past 5 pm.  And she told me I was irresponsible, and that this was not proper behavior, and that from now on she wanted my check on the 31st of each month so that she has it in her hand by the 1st, and on, and on, and on.  For over five minutes.  

I couldn't get a word in edge wise.  I kept trying to tell her that yelling at me was unnecessary, that she'd have the check in her hand within a few hours as soon as I was home.  I tried to tell her that I knew I'd made a mistake, but that it was not intentional, and that I was absolutely aware that I would need to pay a penalty for my absentmindedness.  But she couldn't hear a bit of what I kept trying to tell her, because she kept cutting me off each time I'd speak, and she just kept scolding me.

I hung up feeling like I could burst with frustration.  She was absolutely absurd in her behavior, and I couldn't believe that she had reacted in such an unprofessional way.  I fully admitted my mistake, I offered to pay the penalty late fee before she even brought it up, and I apologized for causing her an "inconvenience" (even though she wouldn't be going to the bank until the next morning when it opened anyway).  

So I got home that night and I wrote a separate check out for the $65 penalty she told me I owed, fully intending to write a letter of complaint to the management company about her behavior.  I dropped them both in the box, and when I left the next morning at 7 am, I saw that she hadn't yet removed them from the box. 

Side note: I'd been on the fence since I moved into this place, debating whether or not I should stay put in a super cute apartment in a good neighborhood, or if I should seek out a possibly smaller and potentially more expensive apartment in a cooler neighborhood like West Hollywood or Los Feliz, once my lease is up in February.  And I have to say that after that call, I decided that that was the sign I needed to make my decision to start the apartment hunt come January.

Oh, but the kicker?  Last night when I got home, 24 hours after I dropped my rent check in the box at 10 pm on the night of the 3rd (it was a full four hours late), guess who knocks on my door?  Crazy Russian landlady.  She came to tell me that she tried to submit my penalty fee check to the management company and that they told her to return it to me as I'm a good tenant.  

I'm pretty sure it killed her to have to tell me that.  :)

***

In case you haven't read about some of the crazy living situation stories that happened in New York, you can check those out here and here.