Despite being 54 years old and reasonably intelligent, I become almost brain dead in the face of those I perceive as authority figures or who I perceive to be in positions of power. Paradoxically this behavior arises out of an odd mix of fear and trust. I navigate the big world as a very tall (for my age) five year old, with a five-year-old's faithful expectation of fairness and also her experiential fear that she is somehow misbehaving, in the wrong, in the way and in big trouble... EVEN WHEN I KNOW THIS TO BE UNTRUE.
The old bug-a-boo about not inconveniencing others rears it's ugly head too, so when I moved into my new apartment to find a non-working shower and a broken refrigerator, did I call instantly to report this? Nope. Didn't want to seem like a bother, so I waited a few days and then called and then I waited another few days for the shower to be fixed and another week after that for my landlord to shop for a new refrigerator. And I'm still waiting for arrangements to be made for the removal of two sofas, a tv, three "antique" dressers and an assortment of other items belonging to my new landlord. After all, he was nice to me. He took my money and let me move in. How can I complain? What if he gets mad at me and tells me I have to go? In the part of the world I am living in at present, that is not quite as unreasonable a fear as one might think.
Despite all this, on the unsolicited (but good) advice of four separate people, when I went to pay the rent on Monday, I beat back all the demons (well, sort of) and asked for a discount on the rent. I had brought a refrigerator full of groceries from my last residence which all wound up in the garbage. I had extra expense of eating without benefit of refrigeration. I had gone for a week unshowered and I am still unable to finish unpacking and making the place my own because I need to work around a lot of furniture which does not belong to me. You have probably already guessed that the request was not met with a beaming smile and a big "yes." I think that our species still has enough of our primitive animal instincts that we smell fear in one another. Our meeting was set up in such a way that I was in the landlord's turf. His secretary and another person were both present so it was not private. He greeted me with the words,
