Tuesday, February 21, 2012

When the Doorbell Rings, I Hide in the Bathroom For Five Minutes

The truth of this statement is hilarious to me. I honestly do hide in the bathroom everytime someone rings the buzzer downstairs. When I eventually come out again, I creep timidly back into the livingroom and look around before getting back to what I was doing. Even then though, it’s too late and I’m super paranoid that the doorbell is going to ring again.
I know what you’re wondering and no, I’m not a hermit or an agoraphobe. There are several completely rational explanations that in no way suggest that I am crazy or maladjusted.
     Here is the simplest: My apartment is freaking tiny and my buzzer is super loud. No matter where I am in my place, if the buzzer goes off, I jump.  High. And then I swear. A lot. I admit, I’m a naturally jumpy person. If anyone wants to scare me in any given moment, they probably could. But this is too much.
 I hate this buzzer more than I’ve ever hated anything in my entire life.  I haven’t the foggiest idea why the buzzer needs to be loud enough to hear downstairs in the street (true story) but it is. Maybe extra loud buzzers were on sale due to an overwhelming amount of heart attack complaints so my landlord thought he’d save a buck.
As a result of this buzzer from the lowest depths of hell, I flee to the bathroom (the farthest point in my apartment from the door, which is sadly still only like 15 paces away) so that if the person downstairs rings again,  maybe....maaaaybe I won’t jump again. This never works, but I’m an eternal optimist.
Now, you’re probably wondering why I don’t just answer the door. Well, there’s another good reason for that which again, is totally (maybe semi) rational.
Reason #1- Failure to Communicate
     I live in Spain and my Spanish is still...imperfect. But I’m working on it, and I can get by in most conversations. However, people who come to the door don’t know that I'm spanish-challenged and usually talk really quickly, dropping syllables like it’s hot. Plus, my speaker is awful (really crackly) so that I can never understand WTF they’re saying. Even when it’s something really simple like “I have a package”, I can’t get it so then I’m left asking over and over again who they are and who they’re looking for before they finally get fed up and leave.  This is not a fun situation for me. Probably not for them either but hey, my house.
Reason #2- It’s never for me
It’s almost always a guy selling something, a friend of the guy downstairs (this is particularly infuriating since there are only two apartments) or homeless people asking for money (that happens a lot here). 
So after living here for 3 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that answering the door is for suckers and not foreigners.

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