More Back in the Day

Now that I have The Baby and The Mortgage, my stressed-out mind constantly drifts back to the good ol' days when I was a swinging single just looking for a good time. Which really wasn't so long ago, come to think of it. I moved out of my mom's house at the ripe old age of 28.

And moved in with Valerie The Hot Radiologist. Boy was she stacked. Huge set of lungs on that woman. And she was pretty slim too. I think she was 26 at the time, also single, but with omnipresent Indian boyfriend. She partied a lot.

Some of her party tops were so tight that even I couldn't breathe. When I mentioned this to one of my horny male friends, he also wanted to not breathe, so I was compelled to invite him to my flat one evening so he could meet her. And that's the beginning of another story that I can't really talk about.

I think we would have gotten along a lot better if she hadn't been so damn neat. I'm not exactly a den of slack myself but that woman was almost obsessive compulsive. Even the dirty dishes in the sink had to be stacked just so. Given the amount of effort it takes to do that, I could've washed the dishes already. We lived together for about 7 months, during which I even got used to having my fridge magnets rearranged by her.

But I digress. The original purpose of this entry was to relive the time when we were trying to get the landlady to extend our lease at a cheaper rent. Still can't believe the antics we got up to. Tactics to make the apartment as unattractive as possible to prospective tenants who visited include shutting all the windows, switching off the aircon and chainsmoking throughout their visit, with Axl Rose screaming "November Rain" at top volume (on repeat).

Still, the flow of prospective tenants were unstoppable. I think it was because we were within a 1-km radius from Methodist Girls' Primary School or something. The woman who eventually took over the lease visited the apartment at the peak of its smokiness with her husband and 2 children, and STILL contrived to stay almost an hour, during which I almost passed out from all the nicotine in my bloodstream. Or, should I say, the blood in my nicotine-stream.

I read an article sometime later about tactics that other tenants use (apparantly this is a global phenomenon!):

- foul-smelling cooking
- dirty nappies
- satanic symbols
- lots of booze
- bongs
- (and for really good measure) scattered hypodermic needles

Sigh. If only I had come across that article earlier. We were paying S$1,100 per month for 2 people to share an apartment along Bukit Timah Road. For that, I would have gladly burned rubber on the stove while wearing a dirty diaper.