saturday chores

We do not have a strata set up for our apartment block. We do not have a separate bank account for a communal pool of money for things that need fixing. We do not have a cleaning lady or a gardener. Instead the neighbours meet up on the staircase once in a while when things need doing and someone goes around collecting money for the new shrubs that need to be planted or the like. We clean the stairwell ourselves, with each unit responsible in alternate weeks for their section of the stairs. One lady collects money for the water bill. Another dude does the same for the garbage removal and another for the communal electricity used in the apartment block. We all get on. Except for the 65 year old smart alec Warsawvian spaz, who bought his unit as an investment and only comes around once in a while to scoff at the lack of progress done in the communal parking area. On Saturday I was weeding and having extreme fun in pulling out the fuckers from between the pavement cracks in the hot sun, and smart alec spaz came towering over me suggesting I purchase weed killer instead, to avoid ‘calluses on those pretty hands’. Pf. I, a) rolled my eyes because I do not have pretty hands, and b) to show I was no wimp when it comes to unnecessary manual labour, pulled even harder at the weeds. Overall, it was a good afternoon and I enjoyed talking to Ania, the neighbour on the ground floor. She has an Algerian husband and told me tales of how their house was ransacked on random occasions after 9/11 by the police who would take photographs of all the postcards and letters sent from Algeria. After a couple of years of such random searches the police have concluded that Sarik is no terrorist. Her friends still claim that she should not have married an Arab. God, the homogeneity in this country makes people super!