Gregory: Titanic Wuss

Having the maintenance guy in my apartment is always an adventure. Tends to talk a lot, in rambling waves of disconnected verbiage. He’s also chronically unable to speak and work at the same time. The dude was in my apartment for four hours. To fix the door, and a burner on the stove. Four. Hellish. Hours.

But it gets better. Because amongst all that disconnected verbiage, I’m always guaranteed to get a good portion of Christian Talk, accented with a dollop of Smug Superiority. It always starts the same — me and maintenance man, see, are united in one thing, which is a certain amount of scorn for the landlady, who is [long series of possibly slanderous insults redacted].

See, thing is, she’s a Christian, too. Only he gets his smug on for that — he’s been Christian longer, and thus is Further on the Path. This is what he told me last time. She’s like, ya know, immature in Christ or something. This time he was telling me how she’s a backstabbing bitch, and him, well, he always remembers that someone else pays the price for his actions, ya know, that guy on Calvary and all, and he’s gotta think what would Christ do, and be that. So he’s like a fucking saint or something, ya know? Because Jesus died in agony for him, and he’s not going to let the dude down, unlike that stupid backstabbing bitch.

Four hours. The Christian thing just keeps coming up. It wanders in and out of the conversation, in between bouts of cussing and detailed descriptions of what large guns on Navy ships can do to another ship. Or a person. He seems to know a disturbing lot about that, but then he’s a Vietnam vet. I just wish he didn’t cackle so much when he’a describing it. Something about the partly toothless grin just makes it downright creepy.

I’m stunned into silence. I want to counter the casual Christian superiority. I want to counter the easy way he conflates “Christian” and “Good,” and keeps bringing up God in my apartment. But I’m a coward today. Maybe because it’s the maintenance guy. There’s no telling what damage he could do if he wanted. And I just want the damn door fixed already, before even more roaches move in. And so I hate myself more and more, letting this little man exercise his superiority complex in my home. I know I’m being a coward, but I just want this whole thing over. It’s my day off! After several long, exhausting shifts! And it’s being taken over by this, this troll, this twisted little man cackling like a demon! I have no food in my apartment that won’t involve the stove. I need him done and gone so I can go get some. So I nod my head, ignore parts of the conversation, bite my tongue, and try not to encourage him. Coward. This is my home, and I’m letting this bastard profane it with his ugly religious talk.

Next time, I swear, The God Delusion is going to be sitting out, right in the open, with maybe a neon sign flashing and pointing to it. Yeah, that’ll show him.