Author: Mary Lucia

I’m a renter, not an owner, baby, so why don’t you kill me?
I realize that this may be the final stumbling block delaying my actual adulthood. I certainly know scads of people my age and younger who’ve taken the plunge. As Bob Smith would say, “Why can’t I be you?”
Is it the dough? Nah. I’m not exactly livin’ large, but I’d say I’m still a few years away from living under a bridge drinking Scope, so that’s not it. I’ve got my reasons, admittedly all stupid. Here’s the sad truth: I don’t want to give up all future “renting stories.” Really, I need the material.
There have been plenty of social situations in which I’ve held friends and strangers captive with tales of previous dumps and their inept landlords. One genius that comes to mind was the PETA-hating caretaker who regularly made change from, stored writing implements in, and fished cigarette lighters out of her ample bra—the same Dr. Dolittle I saw on more than one summer night trap an unsuspecting bat in the window and annihilate it with Final Net hairspray. I still don’t know whether that was part of her job description or just recreational.
I loved the spinsters who would clutch their purses and practically walk into walls to avoid eye contact with me. How about the woman who lived above me who one month rented a karaoke machine that apparently featured only one song selection, namely Bette Midler’s can’t-hear-it-enough-times classic “The Rose.” And most memorable was the all-night hallwalker who once knocked on my door asking if she could “borrow a fake fingernail.” Let me rummage through my Lee Press-On Nail junk drawer and I’ll get back to you, wing nut.
If I see a centipede the size of a Humvee in the laundry room, I need to know that it’s someone else’s job to get rid of it, and that if I wanted to I could pack up and flee in my jammies in the middle of the night.
This all makes perfect sense to me, much in the same way that my reluctance to get married isn’t because I fear commitment or think my boy isn’t oh-so-dreamy. My strong principles demand that I never wear white shoes. Not even for a few hours. What’s not to get?

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do some fill-in work at a radio station. Handed a pile of standard forms to fill out, I sat staring at question number four. “List three people to call in case of emergency.” Three! Didn’t it used to be one? Just how dangerous is this gig? I thought I’d be plugging in headphones and back-selling Ella Fitzgerald. I didn’t realize I’d also be milking the venom out of snakes.
Eureka! I’ve got a boyfriend-he’ll be first on my list. Now, anyone after this becomes comedy. Dad? I think he still believes the telephone to be a new invention, which might explain why his “phone voice” sounds like someone rounding up cattle. Besides that, he hasn’t answered the phone since 1995. Siblings? All screeners. Besides that, three out of five won’t drive if there’s a freeway involved. One is paralyzed with social anxiety and doesn’t leave the basement; moot point as he doesn’t have a driver’s license anyway. “Hurry, I’m bleeding! Snort your Ritalin and hop on your bike!” Not likely. Friends? I feel like I’m putting them out when I ask them to coffee. I don’t think I’d feel comfortable asking any of them to identify my headless body at the morgue.
I lived alone for years and would often wonder: What if I were to slip on the Irish Spring in the shower and hit my head? How many days would it take for someone to notice I was “missing”? Very tricky as a freelancer. If it happened on a Friday, God help me, it might be a week. My agent would call, but would she honestly come rushing over to bang on my door? Come on Eileen, I don’t think so. Unless she hadn’t gotten her ten percent that month. Now that I think about it, I realize living like a flake could really work to my disadvantage. “Oh, no one’s heard from Lucia in a month. But you know, that’s just her.” I do have cats, but as of yet I haven’t been able to train them to dial 911. (We’re still working on “GET DOWN!” from the top of the television.) It got me thinking that some enterprising person should offer their services as someone’s in-case-of-emergency contact. You could hire someone on a year-to-year basis. They could have multiple clients. They would only need to be sober, own a pager, and not have an irrational fear of doorknobs. 1-800-I-AM-SANE.

After the black cloud of hell that is known as the holidays in my family, I came down with the “cruise ship flu,” a name which doesn’t begin to paint this evil in the proper light. Never in my adult life have I been this sick. As god is my witness, I shan’t be kneeling in front of the toilet again, lest I accidentally drop Richard Ashcroft’s 14-carat engagement ring in, and even then.

Cry for help? Probably. It’s the first time in 10 years I’ve looked for a job that doesn’t involve kissing some coke-whore program director’s payola-padded, modern-rock white ass. Pride? You betcha. Mail-order plans for kitchen meth lab looking good? Check. Meds? Plenty. Side effects? Does having evening chats with the Care Bears and losing all interest in food, sex, and the outside world qualify as a side effect?

The yardstick I use to gauge my depression has always been what I refer to as the “summer of the penny.” Several years ago, I noticed one red cent laying on the floor in my apartment and each day I saw it, I told myself I should pick it up. Three months later, it was still there, only now it rested gently on a fluffy bed of cat hair. That was as bad as it got.

Well, there WAS the evening I spent on the phone with a nurse from Medformation. One night, after I had dropped a birth control pill under my desk, I was on hands and knees searching. I popped the first small white object I saw into my mouth. Then I sinkingly remembered that for the last week I’d been administering antibiotics to my sick cat, which he would promptly spit out. Stupid human. Was I being paranoid, or did I really have an urge to lie in the clothes basket and paddle a twist-tie around the floor for 45 minutes? God knows, I DO mean to make light of depression, but I will take a hostage if I hear another smug moron say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Wrong, Larry. I think what doesn’t kill you now sloooowly eats away at you, emotionally crippling you, and even more disturbing, makes the Style Network seem important.