See You Next Tuesday

I think no one has called me out for the way I've been overusing cunt lately, because they understand why it's such a foul word for me. I give it the same vitriol that lesbians give ballsack, and bisexuals use dignity. Just one of those things that has no use in our daily lives. I mean, I haven't seen a cunt up close (not counting my landlady) in a number of years now. And while that number isn't nearly as large as I would like, it is greater than two, which is a start.

I try and only use the word in the company of people who will understand me, or on The Internet, which is just a bastion of tolerance.

I understand why some people don't like it. I don't like when people use the word retard as an insult when they mean stupid. I don't mind if they use retarded to describe someone who is slow moving due to a weight dragging behind them, or someone who will be late for work because construction retarded their progress, but stupid people are just stupid. And cunts are cunts.

This week I am calling her a cunt because she called me while I was in the pharmacy across the street. She had blocked her number, and had I not been expecting a call from someone whose number I didn't know, I wouldn't have answered the phone at all. But I did.

"Safey, this is Cunt. Do you know what the date is today?"

"Excuse me?" To be fair, I probably sounded a bit rude, but I know a lot of Cunts, and I was not expecting any of them to use me as a phone-activated calendar.

"Do. You. Know. What. Date it is?"

"The...tenth, I think. Which Cunt is this?"

"Safey, if it's the tenth, why don't I have your check?"

"I put a check in the box on the first." Late the night of the first, but they never check it until the second or third, anyway.

"We don't have it."

And, here, perhaps, I should have been diplomatic, and said I'd look into it. But, here's the deal: for the last four months, she has told me that she hasn't received my check. And each of these prior months, it's turned out to be another of the roommates' checks that she hasn't received. She has been wrong four consecutive times. In fact, the only time I have ever been late with a check was the first month when I had my mother send a check to her. Unfortunately, Cunt isn't Cunt's real name. It's an alias. She probably pissed off the wrong sort of people before she married into money, and she has therefore changed her first and last names. I don't mean she changed her last name to her husband's, I mean she changed it to the name of the fancy car she hopes to one day own and use to run over small children and poor, elderly people. So, since her fake name isn't on the mailbox, the check was returned to my mother. Eventually. First, the tenants upstairs held onto it for a while. At any rate, rather than taking the diplomatic route, I said "Are you sure it's my check this time? You keep telling me you haven't received my check, and it ends up either 1.) your husband has it, or 2.) you have mine, and are missing another roommate's."

"You should know whether or not you wrote me a check." She said, which I did know, and which I hadn't given any impression of not knowing.

"I DID write you a check, and left it in the box. Are you sure you didn't lose it again?" A couple of months ago she'd lost two of my roommates' checks (they were in the same envelope), causing mass chaos when she told the two roommates whose checks she'd already cashed (mine, included) that she didn't have our money.

At this point, I was nearly back at the house. Hoping that she and her husband would be in the driveway, so I could talk to them face to face. They were not.

"Hold on." She said. "I'm not dealing with this retard." I thought she had put the phone down after the hold on and was addressing someone in whatever circle of hell she was currently being flogged in. I was wrong.

"Hi. This is Cunt's Husband." Cunt's husband said.

She had called me a retard. While I was within earshot. Deliberately while I was in earshot. And now she was going to try and Good Cop me with her doormat husband?

"Look." I said. And before I could really vent my anger, he interrupted.

"I'm going to check and see which check we're missing when we get home, but I think it's yours."

"Well...I'll go check, myself. Either way, I'm going to write you a new check. If you find the old one, cash them both, and I won't write you a check for July, because I'm tired of your lousy bookkeeping."

"I'm sorry." He said. It's a phrase I imagine he mutters in his sleep. Especially when Cunt saws off and re-attaches his head with her teeth. "You should check with your roommates, and see if one of them hasn't paid us yet. I know we're missing one check, and I think it's yours."

I entered the house, where Byrne was sitting on the couch. My bad mood was very apparent. "One of my roommates is home, the others should be back in a couple of hours, I'll check, and call you back."

And I hung up the phone.

According to my electronic bank records, it was my check that hadn't been cashed. So I called back Cunt's phone. She answered. "Give me your husband." I said.

She handed the phone to him. "Hello?"

"Yea, I checked my bank statement. You haven't cashed my check. But I definitely put it in the box on the first, before one of my other roommates, whose check you've already cashed."

"Could you write another one and leave it in the box? The one out front."

And here, I refrained from saying, Oh, you mean the one I've been using every month since last October?

"Yea, I called the place the other day." FULL OF SHIT! FULL OF SHIT! "And they finally got the part in. I don't know how long before we get it." Probably the day we move out. "I'm thinking of calling the Better Business Bureau."

"Me, too." I said. "It's been five months. Also, I don't appreciate being called a retard by your wife."

Silence.

"Yea, okay. So, the money will be in the box tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow night, probably. Or Thursday. I've got a busy week." It was the first of two days off for me.

"Ok. Well, thanks."

And, as I hung up the phone, I said "What a cunt." Hoping he hadn't hung up yet, or, better yet, had handed the phone back to his wife.

See, when I'm calling someone a cunt, I'm using it as an insult the way a chipmunk might use the name teeth when he's annoyed by an obnoxious beaver. Sure, a lot of people have teeth, but beavers are just so...teethy about their teeth ownership. And this is what my cunt landlady is like, picking up the phone with her gigantic vagina, and using it to queef the word retard at anyone who doesn't bow in awe at her enormous, enormous cunt. Instead, opting for "Sure. And while I have you on the phone, when are you going to fix our washing machine. It's June." Our washing machine having been broken since February.