Squirrels

Squirrels! I mean it! Squirrels will take over the world! Ok, maybe not... But they will take over the NY one day.


The sixth article I started or something like that, but this one I'm going to finish, because I'll sleep in a car today, so I'm in a library and no place to go. So hooray for me, right?

Let's backtrack though and start about two weeks ago when we came to NY.
We came on the evening of the 14th (Thursday). We arrived to Andrea's mother's friend's house where we were supposed to stay for a few days and we pretty much just went to bed after we arrived.
The next day I had to wake up early and get to school (from Queens to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn), which took me almost two hours (1.5h by train). Lovely, eh?
Anyway, I got to school. I took the test I was supposed to. I didn't have to do it actually, because I'm just so great and smart, but anyway, I did and then I went to International Student Affairs to sort out the paperwork and so on.
A few things about Kingsborough Community College (KCC): it's on the South of Brooklyn by the beach. The campus is really nice. I saw a squirrel within the first ten minutes of getting there which made me really happy. I got less excited when I found out that squirrels are everywhere in NY (Literally! No kidding). The people are mostly black and that's probably it for now.
After the test and paperwork I went to Manhattan to meet Andrea and together we walked around downtown. We got tired quite quickly so we went back to Queens.

The next day we didn't do many exciting things. We walked around Queens and Manhattan a bit. Went to Rockefeller Center, Grand Central. We stopped at Bryant Park to look for apartments. From there we went to a street fair with heaps of stands with different food, clothes and so on. We continued on to Times Square and after that we went to see an apartment. Really nice and big, but too expensive so we had to decline the offer.

Sunday the 17th was much more exciting. Andrea's mom's friend told us thatwe have to leave by this evening, so we had to find something really soon, so in the morning we went to see a room in Brooklyn. It wasn't bad, so we said we'll decide later. We moved on to Brighton Beach to see another room and here comes the fun part. The guy (a rabbi!) sent us a lot of strange texts before we came. In one of them he said he wants "the 420 as a security deposit". In his ad he wrote that he's 420 friendly, but this seemed really odd... We told him we don't have anything. He wrote about 30 weird messages that made no sense, but then we met and he showed us the apartment. It was really nice, in a great location for a reasonable price, but we were told we would have to stay in a room that's not private and serves as a living room between his room and the kitchen. We said we like the apartment, but we're worried about not having enough privacy. He said that we could switch the rooms later if we pay 50 dollars more. We agreed.
The guy was really weird and I was a bit worried how it's going to be to live with him, but Andrea liked the apartment and I thought it shouldn't be that bad because he seemed he's willing to respect out privacy.
Such an idiot!
The rabbi gave us the key (remember that and wonder why did he do that) and we said we're going to get our stuff and come back in the evening with the money for the two weeks of August and the deposit. We agreed that we give him 350 for August and the deposit was meant to be 750 instead of 700 as before because we would get the other room.
So we went out to see the aquarium because we had enough time. While in there Steven started texting and calling us that he needs his key back. We told him ok, but thought "What the fu*k?" That didn't calm him down and he told us several times to give the key back, we told him we'd do it, but he threatened with the police if we don't give him the money back.
That was our second warning and even though we were kind of desperate to find some place to live, we're still idiots.
Anyway, after a complicated phone calls we met and we returned the key and we agreed that we'll meet in the evening, give him his money and get the keys.
So again we spent 1.5 hours on train, we packed our stuff and we were on the train again going to Manhattan.
We told Steven we'll wait in Washington sq and we did, when he told us it will take another hour because he can't leave his filming/work/school/whatever. Meanwhile we ate Ethiopian food and started playing chess with pieces that were left on one of the tables in the park. During that some random guy came and disrupted our game because for some reason he just had to play with me. I didn't bother stopping him, so we just started playing. While Andrea left for a minute to meet our rabbi the guy asked if I want some weed. I told him I don't, but I thought it might be useful to Steven, because he even asked us to get him weed as part of the payment (insane), so when they came back I introduced them and they started talking business. The black guy brought his two friends and they left with the rabbi. We continued our game which was once again interrupted by the owner of the pieces and it was also interrupted by my opponent who tried to reach the others who left to get a change for a 100 dollar bill. We called them and he left. Then he came back again and said he couldn't find them, so we repeated the calls and he left again. That somehow brought another previous visitor-black guy and owner of the chess pieces. He sat down without a word and then took all his belongings. Second game I wasn't able to finish and both of them were quite interesting. Great!
Anyway, after some time they all came back, sat down and started rolling joints. The chess player started talking to Steven and asked for money. Why? Because he arranged weed for him and he deserves his share. He asked for a dew dollars and Steven refused. The conversation continued the same until Steven advised him to visit a church, mosque or a synagogue, because they offer food and they might help him. That obviously made him angry and he was annoyed so he argued with Steven, who remained calm. We decided to head to our apartment, because it was getting late.

The next few days, we didn't do many interesting things, so I'll try to explain why me we had to move from the apartment in two weeks.

We all agreed that we will take the other (private) room, so after few nights in living room we decided to move. Steven agreed, so we moved our stuff, his stuff and it was all good, even though it was complicated for no reason. In the morning (early morning, like 6am) we were woken up by the rabbi, who had to talk to someone on the phone and not only he was talking loudly, he was on speakerphone, so we heard the whole conversation. After a while I told him to turn the speakerphone off (at least) and he did, but he did exactly the same thing almost every morning from then. He talked to his "meema" (pronounced "mýma" in Czech) and even though I think it's his mom, I still can't be sure.
Anyway, he was talking to her almost every morning so loudly that he always woke us up. Strange is that it was always the same conversation (literally! :- ) and I don't want to go into details, but I learned a lot about his ex-wife, their relationship and her mother's (?) view on all that.

Anyway, we changed the rooms, but the next day he started complaining and he said we have to switch it back. We told him, we had agreed to that and after some discussion he said it's fine. After a day or two we left upstate to Andrea's country house, where we spent lovely three days doing nothing.
After we came back, he was in our room and he said we need to move to the other room. Once again we told him we want this room, we agreed to have it and once again he said ok, but this time with one condition, that we will move the AC to the living room. We didn't need it, so we said we'll get the drill, screwdriver and so on and we will move the AC. That satisfied him. For now..
But then we were coming home day the next and he called me and said we will have to move out in October (I think). That wasn't a problem for us, because we already decided we will stay for the September we paid for and then we'll find something else. In a few minutes we got home and he told us that we'll have to move out in two days (or something like that) because his family is coming and he has to let them sleep in here. We didn't really mind that, but we said he has to give us our money back. At the same time he also started complaining about the room and he said that because we didn't change the AC we have to leave the room.
This is where the problem started, because we wanted 750 back, while he said we paid him only 700 and 400 was for the two weeks in august. We would leave the room and everything would be fine if he agreed to that, but he didn't. At first he argued with us, that he just sat down and said things like: "You're killing my vibe right now." "I need to wake up tomorrow, just leave me be." "I'm high and I don't want to talk about this." "I need to sleep, can you just leave the room?"
I kept repeating that we want our money back and we're not leaving until we get it. I was nice at first. I wasn't yelling at all and I tried to explain to him what happened. That we agreed to 750 for september and 350 for August, since in September we would be paying more for the other room and 350 was half of 700 for the rest of August. I asked him why the hell would we pay 400 for two weeks if that's way more than half of 700 especially for two weeks which is not really half of a month. He didn't understand any of it. I mean any (!) of it and he kept repeating the same things again.
After some time he got angry, he grabbed my laptop and tried to move him to the other room. At that point I got angry and I yelled at him to stop touching my stuff. He let go of my laptop (while he broke my mouse), but he still tried to move our stuff to the other room. I gave up on the room, because I didn't want him to touch my things, so we said we'll move out. That calmed him down, but not me and I kept asking him if he's going to give us the money back. He said he will, I asked how much and he said 700. I kept telling him that we want all your money, that he's a thief and he told me to calm down, otherwise someone will call the police. I didn't really care about that plus I knew that he's high, so I told him that. He took it the wrong way and thought I'm threatening him with police.
He misunderstood many thing, because at one point I asked if he owes us 700. Somehow he missed the question mark and from that point he started saying I agreed with him. He accused us of not knowing what we're doing, of making stuff up and so on.
I was hoping someone would call the police to be honest...

Anyway, we slowly moved our stuff to the other room, because we knew there's no point in talking to him and we decided to move out immediately the next morning. For obvious reasons I assume... But then something bizarre happened. He decided to move all the stuff from the living room to his newly regained bedroom. And I mean all the stuff! I asked him why is he doing it and he said he doesn't trust us and he thinks we might steal from him. I told him that's ridiculous for one simple reason.
His bedroom was not locked!
I told him that if we wanted (which is something we wouldn't do) we could take his possessions anyway.
Once again he took it the wrong way and thought I want to steal things from him and once again he proved he's a fucking moron, who can't even understand basic things. I don't know if he was too high for that, if he already smoked so much that his brain turned to mush or if he was always a total idiot, but I guess it makes no difference, because he is the perfect example of a person, who's ruining this nice world for everybody. If you can't handle smoking and don't remember things, then don't smoke and if you are an idiot, please please pretty please kill yourself!

So he spent another hour moving all his stuff (like small wooden Russian figurines :-D). After that we finally had the time to pack our clothes and that's what we did. We packed everything and at about 3am I went to bed. I woke up after less that four hours and we took all our bags and boxes to the car, because there's no way I was going to leave all my belongings with that idiot.
After that I went to my orientation. It was supposed to be a great day full of new experiences and friends and it started this way.

After the orientation I met Andrea in the apartment, because he told us he will give us the  money. Once again I asked how much and I pointed out another thing to him; we paid for August and we're leaving early, so how about that money. He didn't say anything relevant to that. So we waited. We waited until he told us that he can't give them to us.  How unexpected.
At the end we agreed that we can wait for the money, but need some proof he owns us, so we wrote and all signed a little form that says he owns us 725 (that's all we were able to get out of him).

That's pretty much it...

Oh no wait!

There's much more.
He lost his watch somewhere. He asked us where it was and we told him we don't know. He said ok, but the next morning he came to me and told me he couldn't find them and he asked "your girlfriend wouldn't steal them, right?"
How I wish she did, but unfortunately I found them in a box on top a cupboard.
We didn't use electric appliances excessively. We turned things off when we didn't need them, but he was leaving AC or fans turned on the whole day, when he was not there. Yet on the last day he asked us if we have to keep one light turned on, because he's trying to save.
WHAT THE WHAT? You are trying to save? We paid you the rent and you immediately went to buy new shoes which cost. How did you say it? "They were not even that expensive, only 200 dollars."

The apartment was messy. That wasn't such a big issue, because we (well... mostly I) cleaned it and made it habitable. We also tried not to wear shoes inside. Steven didn't care about that at all, but on the last day when we waited for our money he told us to take our shoes off. Ok, fine. At least he's learning. But he also said he told us many time to take our shoes off and we still don't do it.
WHAT THE FUCK? You fucking idiot! Not only you never told us that, but you never even did that!


No wonder people hate Jews! :-D

Anyway, what should I do to him? Should I get a gun and kill for humanity? Should I steal things from him, because I refuse to give him the keys until he gives us the money? Or should I let it go and just hope we'll ever see our money again (Well... Andrea's money to be exact).