Me and my friend were sitting at the train station because we had just participated in the Hands Off All of Our Democratic Things, dear Administration march and we were tired, not because it was a long march, but because the situation in our country is so exhausting and being enraged takes up a lot of energy. So, we plunked ourselves down on a row of seats that faced two different directions. These benches had seats for 8 people – 4 sitting back-to-back with the other 4. My husband went to get the car. My friend and I looked at our phones and at the baggage of the people sitting next to us, who had kind of spread their stuff out and it was a little hard to find some space. We had to push our way in a little. That’s when we noticed there were two women talking right behind us. We couldn’t see them, but we could sure hear them.
They were talking about the one woman’s roommate and what a pain in the ass she was and why did all these people who rented from her have to be such a pain in the ass. One woman said that she should do the interviewing because clearly the other woman – the one who rented her place out – was attracted to the crazies.
“This new one is the worst,” said the landlady.
“Why?” said the other woman, who was presumably her friend.
“Because she keeps on moving the bathroom rug!” said the landlady. “ This loony tunes woman had the nerve to move the bathroom rug without asking me, so I moved it back, and then she moved it AGAIN and this went on 5 times and I thought ‘Ok, bitch, I’m going to get you,’ and I bought a whole new rug — an ENORMOUS one, almost impossible to move — and then I took the old bathroom rug and put it in her room, tacking it to the floor with nails.”
“Well, Janice,” said the other woman, “maybe the bathroom rug was a problem for her.”
“She said it made her trip,” said Janice. “But that’s crazy. Who trips on a rug?
“Lots of people,” said Janice’s friend. “You can fall in the bathroom. 78% of home injuries happen in the bathroom, according to USA TODAY.”
“She’s crazy,” said Janice, ignoring that comment.
This was such an intense convo, and Janice was so mad about the bathroom rug, that me and my friend, and the people next to me, started laughing very quietly.
“There’s more,” said Janice. “I’ll have you know that I can’t fry an egg in my own kitchen.”
“What?” Said the friend.
“I was making myself a little snack in the kitchen, and she complained I woke her up.”
“What time was it?”
“2.”
“PM?”
“AM. But who wakes up to an egg frying?”
The egg anecdote really got to my friend, and she snorted with laugh she couldn’t contain. I looked at her warningly. We had to hear more!
“Janice, you sound kind of selfish,” said the friend.
“Listen,” said Janice, “This woman, this masseuse, she’s the selfish one.”
A car pulled up.
“That masseuse is an old biddy and I’m going to throw her out,” declared Janice as she and her friend got into the car.
Now we glimpsed them: white, middle-aged, and one of them – possibly Janice – slammed her red skirt into the passenger door. Off they went with a trail of red.
The people next to us laughed with us as Janice and company drove off.
“We’re television writers,” they said to us; “And this was tailormade for sitcom.”
Me and my friend are writers too, but we didn’t get a chance to say that because my husband drove up and we got into the car.
We laughed again about the conversation. Then I remembered there was a part of it near the end where Janice and her friend talked about needing the rent money to pay for someone’s care, I didn’t catch who. But I realized at a certain point that Janice’s place was small and only had one bathroom, and probably she didn’t want to rent a room out but had to. It’s hard to be selfless when money is so tight.
Then I remembered another part of the conversation.
“Janice,” the friend said, “You need to calm down and relax and enjoy this part of your life; you don’t know how long you have.”
I agreed with that, but I started feeling sorry for Janice and the masseuse-renter who probably would love to have her own place as well.
I felt grateful that Janice had a friend who could listen to that whole diatribe and still have sympathy for her. But that’s also when I started to feel bad for laughing at her.
We dropped off my friend and we went home to our apartment, and I went and stood for a few minutes in each of my two bathrooms. I took a couple of deep breaths and thought about how the influence of the current administration has been so ubiquitous, it has made me a meaner person. How do I protest that? At the same time, I felt lucky to have my nice friend who goes to demonstrations with me and a husband who never moves the bathroom rug.
But of course, we don’t have one. I’m afraid I’ll trip.
Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a seven-time Pushcart Prize nominee in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her most recent novel JOURNEY TO MERVEILLEUX CITY is a magical realist mystery and a finalist for the Foreword INDIE award. She lives in Santa Barbara with her husband, writer and political organizer Larry Behrendt.
