Notes from the Underground

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It's Sunday, March 9, and I'm writing this because there is nothing else to do. It's 11:15 in the morning, and I'm feeling pretty crappy after what I will call an interesting day yesterday, but I will get to that later. Also, sorry about the title of the blog, but I'm reading Dostoyevsky, and I think that title is sweet as. (Note the use of the Kiwi term: sweet as = sweet. They use as all the time like that, including gross as, wicked as.. etc.)

Well, since I wrote, I've had a couple productive days at the orchard. On Thursday and Friday, I did 4 bins each, and on Saturday, I only had to work until 11 30 but still got two bins done. So thats 10 bins, at roughly $25 a bin after tax, which means $250. On top of that, I get paid $65 for monday, bringing my total, after subtracting $80 for rent, to $235. Not too impressive. However, my contractor completely messed up my wages from the first two weeks, and I was underpaid about $135, so I should get that in my paycheck next week, which will bring my total to about $800. On top of the $1000 I have in my other account, I have $1800, which leaves me $1200 short of my goal of $3000. I won't let myself leave Hastings with anything short of $3000.

Speaking of leaving Hastings, I have booked a bus to Taupo (where Mt. Doom is) for April 3rd. I can change the ticket date for $1, and if I either don't have enough money by then or I have gotten really good at apple picking (at least 5 a day), I might stay longer we will see. Taupo has two famous activities that make me want to go there: the cheapest sky dive in the world ($135 from 12,000 feet) and what has been said to be the best one day hike in New Zealand and even the world in the Tongariro Crossing. After that, I have a vague plan to move onto Rotorua and Tauranga. We'll see though.

Umm... what else is going on..

Oh. More roommates moved in. They are three people, ranging in age from (I'm guessing) 30 to 40, and all three are African. The two women are from the Congo, (Congans? Congese? Conganese?) and the guy is... well I'm not really sure what the guy is. He claims to be born and raised in West Palm Beach, but he speaks with such a heavy African accent that I feel he didn't grow up using American English. I mean, his African accent is heavy. The only problem is I don't see why he is lying, unless he is like here illegally or somethign on a US passport. Weird. Anyways, these three people moved in on friday night. We only have four beds, so the two women shared a bed, the guy took my old one, and I moved into the living room so they could have the bedroom to themselves. To be blunt, they are the worst roommates I have ever had. That might partially be my fault. When they first arrived with my contractor, Aaron, I was extremely animated and somewhat jerky to Aaron about the $140 missing from my bank account. That might have given them a bad impression. They moved in on friday night, and the first thing they did was rearrange the refridgerator. Anyone who is young and doesn't know this, DON'T EVER DO THAT. It is extremely aggravating, and becomes even more frustrating when you rearrange everything to put leaky, rotten meat in bags that drips all over everyone else's foods and ruins five of your American roommate's eggs. Also, don't walk into the kitchen to cook about 10 minutes later, look at the just-washed dishes sitting in the drying rack, and say "Well, these don't look very clean." and then proceed to rewash them. AARGH. That made me so mad.

The mornings at the Aladdin motel, flat 5, pre Congoites, used to go like this: Kayleigh wakes up at about 6, moves around quietly well I sleep. She usually woke me up when she moved by me to go to the bathroom, but I fell back asleep quickly and woke up when my alarm goes off at 6 50. Yesterday morning, our first with the Congese or whatever the hell you call them, did NOT flow that smoothly. Kayleigh woke up, went quietly about her business with the lights off (my bed is about 4 feet from the kitchen), and made her breakfast in darkness and silence. The next thing I know, there is an extremely BRIGHT light right over my head. Kayleigh told me that this is what happened. She was putting butter on bread when the fake American guy came out of the bedroom, said, "Oh, you don't have to work in the darkness." And turned on the lights in the living room!! ARGH!@#$ Kayleigh said I moaned quite load when and shifted over when he did that. It wasn't that bad, however, after the initial shock, I just rolled over and fell asleep with my hooded sweatshirt (I don't have a pillow, so that is what I use for one) over my head. The next thing I know, I'm woken up again by loud metal clashes. I look over and one of the stupid Congasshole women is DOING THE DISHES. AT 6:30 in the MORNING. WHILE I'M TRYING TO SLEEP like 4 feet away!!! She was clanging and battering those things around. I just gave up and got out of bed.

This morning, a Sunday morning when none of us have to work, they did the same thing, waking me up at about 7 45. However, I have a policy where I don't get out of bed until 9 15 on sundays, so I ignored them doing dishes and stayed in bed. I feel like I won.

I have come to a conclusion about the Congites, and that is the following: they only live their days in three stages. Stage 1: Sleep. This is the stage where they stay in their bedroom with the door closed. It usually exists from about 10 pm til 5 am, daily. Stage 2: Not at the motel. This stage, obviously, is when they aren't at our flat. They are usually working picking blueberries during this time period. The rest of the time can be summed up by saying Stage 3: Meals. They get up in the morning, and they do the dishes. They scrub out the dishes they cleaned the night before, and then they make a ridiculously long and drawn out meal that involves like 5 courses and which must be a huge hassle to make. In the morning, this process will take an hour. Saturday night, my only experience with this phenomenom at night, it took two hours for preparation. After that, they have the eating stage where they go in their room and eat, far away from me and Kayleight. After that 20 minute respite, they go back to the kitchen, where they spend the next 2 hours cleaning the dishes meticulously and driving me absolutely insane. Then, when this is completed, they turn off the lights and go to bed. It should be known that there is no break after work. On saturday, they returned at 5, prepped for 2 hours til 7, and then cleaned until 10. Then they went to bed.

I should also note that the word "they" in the above paragraph only refers to the younger of the two women. She does all the cooking, preparing, and cleaning while the older women does god knows what in teh bedroom (she never leaves during hte meal period) and the fake American guy strolls around in a huge, plush bathrobe. I'm serious. This is what my life has come to.

I have a mounting suspicion that they are actually practicing polygamy, and that the two women are the guy's two wives. The younger woman, being the second wife, has to do all the chores.

Oh, on an interesting note, yesterday was a somewhat entertaining day. I got done at about 11 30, and I returned home to find the Congidiots had locked me out. So, I like broke in a window, and while I was sitting around contemplating what to do some Kiwis that live at the motel invited me over for a few drinks. They were some pretty interesting guys, and were subletting their tiny apartment to two french guys. It reminded me of this really funny My name is Earl episode where they rent out a guy's kitchen to live in. Well, I had a couple drinks there, and then went back to shower and relax. After about an hour, one of the guys came over, and I went with him to get a case and what kiwis call "party pills".

I started drinking at about 3, and drank straight through til about 8, stopping once for some McDonalds. We finished the case around then, and then the other Kiwi guy had me try these pills, which are completely legal, but I would compare their effects to Hallucinogenic mushrooms... (although, I, umm, have no idea what those are like). I took a pill, and then tried to find some club or bar to go to, but not one was open in Hastings. So I sat around with my roommate until about 10ish and watched a 40 song countdown of the greatest bands ever, playing a music video for each band. Zeppelin won, by the way. Right near the end of the show, I suddenly notice that all of the people on the television were walking around upside down. I asked my roommate about it, and she told me I was nuts. I wanted to change the channel to see if it was like that everywhere, but I found that the remote was much too heavy for my hand to lift up. In fact, my hand, was stuck underneath the remote! This filled me with fear until I lifted it with the other hand, only to find that I was unable to point it at the television. It was like a magnet, everytime, I pointed it that way and tried to hold it, it would shoot in a different direction. The pill had definitely hit me. I had some other minor episodes later in the night while I was watching WindTalkers, (where Nicholas Cage singlehandedly kills about 104 Japanese people, breaking the record of 61 Mel Gibson had set in the Patriot. I keep track of those things.) I found a girl standing over me yelling at me in Hebrew or Latin or some ancient language. The girl, a white teenager with sunken eyes, crossed her wrists in front of her forehead, and yelled loudly at me until I tried to touch her, after which she disappeared. That's when I decided it was best to go to bed. I want to remind you that this was all completely legal. Talk to you all later.

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Comments

[Cyndy Patton]

legal doesn't mean good
hmmmm...legal? yeah, that's what they TOLD you! Do you think the congites, congidiots, or congassholes had something to do with it???? Anyhow, thank you for the postcard...that was really great and unexpected. I have thoroughly enjoyed the blog. i don't think there's been one that I haven't laughed out loud! Great job, Jeremy...keep goin! Cyndy

[Shawn Babcock]

TMI!!!!
Ok, Jeremy, some stuff should just be left for private e-mails. As if we didn't worry about you too much already, you have just added fuel to that fire. I know you told me that the "be good and have a good time" line didn't work too well together, but perhaps you should re-think that for all of us concerned adults out here. On a more "serious" note, we have loved reading your blogs, and thanks for the post card. Keep on writing, but perhaps your room-mate ( not the congos)can proof read them before you hit the "send" button.