Monday, December 08, 2008

Umm... yeah. My neighbors are psycho.

Ok, I just had the most random experience on Sunday, and it definitely warrants sharing in a public forum as I'm sure that more than a few people will be more than slightly amused by this anecdote. It may freak others out, but luckily for you the reader, you are quite well enough removed from the situation to not be totally irked and weirded out and simply enjoy it for the kooky randomness that it is. Note: this does not, however, make it any less demented or any better in my view, as I am more than just slightly annoyed right now.

Anyway, let's go back to a day that I shall dotingly refer to as Sunday. This particular Sunday was not so fluffy though - let me tell you why. So first, I get a random call from the landlord in the morning telling me that I needed to come in to sign some paperwork - something about the guarantor company or something, I didn't really catch it all as I was still sorta groggy from the Irish Car Bombs from the night previous. Ok fine I say, but then the weird part was that he insisted that I come in that day for whatever reason... small red flag goes up in the head.

But hey whatev, I take the afternoon shaking off the beer groggles and getting a few things done before stopping by the landlord's on the way out to meet a friend. I show up at the landlord's, and he grabs for his briefcase and we start going for a walk - now I know that something is definitely up, but might as well hear it now and get it over with.

So first we take care of the guarantor thing over a cup of coffee - apparently the place went bankrupt and they had to sign me over to another place, so no biggie from my perspective... then he drops the bomb.

I didn't totally understand the whole thing at first... basically all I got from his explanation the first time was him asking if I had any plants in the apartment, which I ironically don't since any plant put in my care will inevitably die from poor care. I say ironically, because I then took the time to look up the word that he kept repeating: 栽培. Once I saw the characters, I feintly remembered it meaning cultivation... wait, what? Things start to click - does this have something to do with drugs?? I ask.

And here's where it all comes out - apparently someone wrote a letter and anonymously sent it to the landlord's office basically accusing me of running a hydroponic weed lab out of my apartment - I hope you now get the irony listed above. I of course tell him how ridiculous this is, and offer to let him check the place out on the spot if he likes. What makes this a tad better, albeit slightly awkward, is that I've talked to this guy a bunch of times - during the application process, then he was helping me with my tickets out to Vietnam, and he's even called me when a plot of land opened up that he though my office might be able to use as a parking lot. So basically we're on good terms, and dude was apparently trying to decide what to do and how to approach this letter all week.

So he comes over and finds no weed, and brings a copy of the letter along to give to me. The strangest thing to him was that the letter came directly to his branch, which means that it pretty much has to be someone living in the building or else they wouldn't know which branch of the company to send it to. He recommended I take it to the cops and report it, as chances were that if they sent something to the landlord they'd try the same with the police as well. I did just to be safe, and the landlord guy offered to put his name in there as a witness on my behalf which was appreciated.

What is not appreciated is that now I know that one of my neighbors is apparently psycho and has it out for me for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I've had little more interaction with the neighbors than a "konnichi wa", and haven't been loud or anything, so even racking my brain I can't think of any possible motive anyone here would have to go all vindictive on me. Now my girlfriend is all scared because of this lame-o felk, which pisses me off about as much as the whole situation itself.

Luckily the landlord and the cops are on my side - the cop I was talking to this morning was basically apologizing on behalf of Japanese society for what he referred to as a mentally unbalanced person who shall be ultimately punished by God for his actions... I shit you not, this is what he said - it was great.

Sigh... I know my life is eventful and all, but what ever happened to events with a fun spin to them, like this or this? I can't think of one way to put a good spin on this one - any help?

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