As of this moment, I technically have two apartments, the one I’ve been living in for the past three years, and the one I’ll shortly be living in some ten blocks away. A few facts:
- Sgt. Lucky has agreed to be my roommate, as long as I promise not to make him get a dog smaller than my handbag. Promises, of course, were made to be broken.
- As a result of all this apartment swapping, I now have three sets of keys – one to my old place, one to Sgt. Lucky’s place, and one to our new place. I could use my keyring as a weapon at this point.
- The new place is rent stabilized, which means that everyone can bite my ass. Yes, yes, they can line right up and bite it, because I win, I win, mwahahaha!
- Conducting real estate transactions in New York has made me not so much of a very nice person sometimes.
- But I don’t care about that, because? Rent stabilized! Suck it!
Sarge and I went over last night and spent an hour figuring out keys and pacing out furniture placement. We brought wine and two glasses, and those are officially the first things in the apartment. That’s both drunk and festive, don’t you agree?
The best part of all this was the phone call I got this morning from our broker, who informed me that ha ha, the other agent who represents our landlord didn’t get the word that we had taken the place off the market, so maybe there might be a small open house at our place on Saturday. And maybe also on Sunday, too. And he didn’t have the dude’s number.
“But don’t worry,” he said. “I mean, it’s yours. You have a lease.”
“That’s hilarious,” I said. “Can you imagine if everyone showed up and I was there, putting up curtains? And my mouth is like, full of pins, and I’m all, hi! Mwawawafumph. This is my place! Who the hell are you?”
“Yeah, hilarious.”
“Oh, come on, Nelson, it’d be funny.”
“Mrrmph.”
“So what time should I not be at the apartment for the pretend open house?”
“Uh. Two to three.”
Which means, BTW, that if you’re looking at an apartment in Park Slope this weekend, there is very good chance that I already have a lease to it.
Jennie Smash 
Wow, rent-controlled in Park Slope? Screw the wine. For that kind of victory, you need a ceremony with fire, face paint, and a freshly slaughtered large mammal.
Wow! Big congrats to Smash and her Commander Fortuitous!!
Careful up there with those pins.