I live on a very cute, quaint and for the most part quiet street. It has a bit of an old world charm, with most of the buildings having been built decades ago and lit by the soft glow of street lamps. I like my street. It’s tree-lined and generally at the end of the day it’s a pretty nice street to stroll down on my way home.
Being that a lot of the buildings are older, they are classic courtyard buildings. That usually means the building is no taller than four stories and there is a courtyard leading to the main entrance. For instance, my building has a few shrubs lining the walkway, which lead to a few steps and a small patch of grass with pine trees in the middle of five different building entrances. Some courtyards are nicer than others. I can’t help but look with envy as I walk by some of the nicer units that have better landscaping, better lighting and gated entrances. For the most part though, I’m content with paying about $200 less a month to not have these and other amenities that come standard with the nicer buildings on my street.
That is until Friday.
It was about 6:30 p.m. when I got off the bus. It had been a long week, and I was looking forward to my weekend. On my mind at that moment was what I was going to eat for dinner and making sure I had something clean to wear to my midnight yoga class. As I approached my building, my head was down to fight the wind, so I barely noticed this large, 20-something guy practically blocking the walkway to my building.
“It’s cold out tonight,” he said, while rubbing his arms that were covered only by a long sleeve t-shirt. As I walked past him, I quietly said, “Yeah, it is.” What I was thinking as I shook my head was, “Yes, it is cold, which is exactly why I’m going to stand here and make small talk.”
I set foot on my steps and as I ascended them, still head down, I heard someone say, “Busted” ever so matter-of-factly. When I reached the top step I finally raised my head to see not one, not two, but three, count them THREE, guys PEEING IN THE COURTYARD OF MY BUILDING!!!!!!!!! (I am making gagging sounds as I type this.)
I was flabbergasted and a stream of profanities immediately began flowing through my head - much like their pee was flowing onto my building at that moment. This is not what I want to come home to on a Friday, or any day for that matter.
I put two and two together and realized the cold dude at the entryway of my building was their lookout… and a bad one at that. Because if he had been good at his job, I would not have seen three streams of pee while walking up to my building.
I continued walking past the pee-ers (whom I can only assume were trying to finish up at that point) screaming, “What that hell!” It was the only thing that came out. I wish I would have said much more. And as I walked I saw these three children who appeared to be all of 20 start to scatter away from my building. I turned my key in the door muttering “You’ve got to be kidding me”, stepped inside and tried to regain my composure. My week has officially ended on one of the worst notes in recent memory.
So what do I take away from this? I take away the lesson that it might be worth the extra money for a building with a gated entrance. I can almost guarantee the pee-ers picked my lovely courtyard because it didn’t require getting buzzed in to participate in public urination.
Now, granted I don’t pay as much rent as the people who live in the gated courtyard buildings do, but I feel I still pay enough that I should not have to step over streams of pee as I walk up to my building. Is this really too much to ask? I am just praying to God this was an isolated incident because if it happens again I’m subletting my place and moving to a building with a gated entrance.
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