TheBanyanTree: Money - One

[Monique Young]

When they come to the door I cringe. I know it's never good news. No one
ever comes to the door and says they owe me money. Management does not
come to my door and say, "Hey, since you've been such a long-time
resident and have caused barely any trouble at all, we'd to thank you by
giving you twenty bucks off next month's rent." No, it's never like
THAT. 
 
The first of the month they drop off a newsletter. This month it
features tax preparation services by Liberty Tax. Liberty Tax gets to
come onsite, into the clubhouse, and prepare tax returns for residents
WHILE THEY WAIT. TAX RETURNS PREPARED WHILE YOU USE THE POOL, THE GYM,
THE WHATEVER. Neato. I do my own tax returns. I'd also do anyone else's
who wanted to pay me for it, but I'm not Liberty Tax and they apparently
have a monopoly on this complex.
 
Whatever. I don't like doing taxes anyway, and I'm up to here (picturing
me slashing horizontally at the air just above my head) with work. 
 
Back to the issue at hand. Sometimes, over the past couple of years,
there have been times when they have come to the door to leave little
notes that say, "Pay up now or get the hell out!" 
 
Okay, maybe they weren't phrased quite that way, but it felt the same.
And it wasn't even the rent itself that was the issue, it was the late
fees. Okay, a couple of times the rent may have been one day late. Maybe
two at the outside. And maybe the water bills got behind. (I can say
that, they're caught up now.) And when that happens, management gets
testy. Forget that I just gave them over $900, a bit more than my rent
because I am attempting to pay up what I owe, they want their money now.

 
What I usually do is I ignore those little notices and make some
payments and they forgive me and we go on. And we were all caught up. So
I thought. After all, I just kept giving them extra money to cover the
water and the late fees, and I'd thought it had been enough.
 
Then they came to the door again. They never knock on the door, they
just slip little pieces of paper in the door for me to read at my
leisure. This always irritates dog. She hates for people to come to the
door and upset her. And I know, if it's management, they want more
money. And I say to myself, "Oh, shit, what now?"
 
Because frankly, for the past few years it's been difficult to keep up
with a variety of people wanting a variety of things, some of which were
clashing with each other. For example, Party A wants $150, Party B wants
$300, and Party C wants $275. None of these amounts by themselves is
overwhelming. But Party B doesn't care that I Party A wants their money,
and Party C couldn't care less what Parties A and B are threatening to
do to me, and I only have, say, $400 in expendable income at the moment.
So sometimes things get away from me. I'm not, I have to keep telling
myself, a bad person despite the apparent evidence to the contrary.
 
I open the door and I pick up the piece of paper that someone had
thoughtfully inserted in the door so that when I opened it the paper
would fall to the ground. And I open it, expecting a three-day notice,
or a demand for money, or something, anything having to do with me
giving more money to someone else. 
 
But this - this I did not expect. This is not a bill. This is not a
request for money. This is not an eviction notice. This is a credit
memo.
 
A CREDIT MEMO. Management wants me to know that I have overpaid them
$46, and they'd like me to deduct it off next month's rent. This strikes
me as particularly funny. Me? Owed money by someone other than clients?
I laugh, perhaps a bit hysterically.
 
Okay, a lot hysterically. This is a sign, I'm sure of it. The world is
coming to an end. I start to wonder if dog and I have enough supplies
in-house to survive the catastrophic social collapse that's bound to
happen at any moment. There'll be rioting in the streets, and fires, and
if dog and I time it right, we can get in on some of the looting . . . 
 
Excuse me, I drifted off for a moment. I'm not sure how to respond to a
credit memo. Most people would, I'm sure, say, "Oh, okay," and go on
about their day. Not me. I am befuddled and perplexed, and a tad bit
overjoyed (eg, hysterical) at this turn of events. 
 
It's just money. IT'S JUST MONEY. So I tell myself.