A very rough meeting this morning

Unbeknownst to me, the manager of that apt. building whom I'd met had to get parental approval to rent to me. His father and older sister showed up to grill me, seriously.

Remarks were passed to me about how it might not be okay with them to rent to someone with children. I guess they don't know that this is against the law. They talked about the dog somehow interacting badly with the other tenants, but she won't actually see them much, if at all. They made it clear that they expected the tidiest of housekeeping in this apartment. I don't think they can put that in the contract, but boy did they make it very clear, to each other in Arabic and then to me.

They are Christian Arabs, so nobody get all excited please.

Anyway, the experience was rough for the manager, as his decisions were being discussed in front of me, and it made me feel like somehow I don't meet their standards. My perfect credit, excellent rental references, all that, well . . . they were concerned more about my boys running around and making a lot of noise overhead for the downstairs tenants who tend to party all weekend.

Soured the deal for me, I'll tell ya. Even though they were about to install a new ceramic tile kitchen floor, they couldn't see the perfect tenant if it hit them in the face.

I've been down in the mouth since then. Barely dragged my ass out of bed to take Avi into the City to his friend's high school graduation. Then Walt came over when I got back (Marshall attended the funeral of an old friend of ours) and we took Heshy to Ikea to look for gateleg tables. Many small and cheap items later we were out of the store and the shopping did the trick.

I was so tempted to call the apt. manager today to commiserate. I hope to hear from him tomorrow, one way or the others.