have an apartment for rent in my house and while I am so very, very sad to see my current tenants leave, I love them so and their 420 baker buddy who looks like Dick Van Dyke but! I am always excited at the prospect of new ones. “The Landlady” is the memoir that I hope to write when I’m accidentally living in Costa Rica during my old batdom. By the way, I’ve given up on planning my next chapter or more precisely, freaking out about having to plan my old age, I’m going with the flow and going to let shit happen day by day, it will unfurl spectacularly as long as you promise to stick by me. Anyway, for the time being, in my middle age, aka, adolescence 2.0, I’ve had 5 sets of tenants here in this old house so I’m a veteran at this landlady gig. I put ads out on the free advertising sites known as Craigslist and Kijiji and hope for the best because fuck knows who will move in, I’ve seen Pacific Heights. 1990 Michael Keaton was cute, I would totally let him move in and destroy my house while he wrecked my upstairs if you know what I mean. The people from Craigslist are especially dodgy and yes, the site may as well be called Cannibals ‘R’ Us. But I like it because you make your needs be known and even in the darkest hour of despair you can get shit transpiring IRL way faster than a pizza delivery from The Hut. But! There’s always that danger of getting murdered.
Kijiji is more pedestrian apparently. Everyone in the ladies’ locker room at the gym tells me it’s better than CL and those hoes seem to be getting a whole lot of lawn furniture on the cheap. On Craigslist if you were selling and/or buying “lawn furniture,” you would have to be tested for STD’s afterward. That’s just basic modern day social mores and people should just stop questioning the kinks of others. From my experience tho, Kijiji is a fucked up junky site full of ads and false ALL CAPS promises and they are always trying to get money out of you for the sake of urgency. URGENT! $49,95 YOUR AD WILL APPEAR ON THE FRONT PAGE! ALSO HERE ARE SOME UGGS AND DESIGNER SUNGLASSES! IN! CASE! YOU! WANTED! ALSO! WITH! YOUR! NEED! FOR! A! ROOF! OVER! YOUR! HEAD! Oh my god, Kijiji, here is what urgency is: Urgency is a liver transplant thatI’m going to need sometime soon (don’t ask). If some asshole who’s looking for a place to live can’t fill out a criteria search and scroll through a few listings, then the same dumbfuck prolly can’t scroll through his wallet and pay the rent on time. Team Craigslist, just saying.
Okay, so the other day a dude answered my Craigslist ad via email and asked if he could come and see the place. Yes, of course you may, my potential serf, I fired back promptly and we set up a time. I immediately googled up his ass because that is what a savvy landlady does and easily found him on Facebook. No, it’s not “stalking” or “creeping,” it’s just smart hockey to check people out before you meet them. Personally, I don’t trust people who have no social media outlets or web presence whatsoever. At least have a burnt out campfire on LinkedIn. I do kind of get shunning Facebook because it triggers anxiety but do try and maintain a Pinterest board of some bogus vegan quinoa recipes. I can tell a lot about you by the what you think you should be wanting to eat but aren’t really. And also what is up with people who put privacy settings on Instagram? Get off the internet, you have no idea how it’s supposed to work.
Anyway this dude had a kind of strange name and there was only one in Toronto so I clicked on his profile and no word of a lie, I actually gasped when I saw his profile pic. I literally lost my breath, clutched my heart and made the sign of a cross. He was that ugly. So ugly! Fugly ugly was a fug! Ugly wugly had a mug! Ugly wugly was so ugly he made somebody blog about his fugly.
Now before you get all in my face about how ugly is how ugly does and who do you think you are, bitch, Charlize Theron? I will say no, I am not Charlize Theron and yes, I am ugly as fuck too. I just got my new driver’s license in the mail and I am one passport portrait away from morphing into a bewildered walrus suffering from climate change asking you to sign a petition to save the icy rock I’m melting on. I’m gross. My downfall is my main chin is a golf ball and my other chin is a loaf of sourdough. The plus however: My eyebrow game is on point, my eyes are kind of good but the rest is just garbage that passes off as cute depending how many drinks you have had.
Anyway, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Being slightly ugly rocks because you can move through a crowd incognito. Save some lives maybe. I saw Charlize Theron in person once at a party and it was like looking straight at the sun. People were passing out at her beauty, just like dropping their jaws and falling down all over each other. Everyone had to be defibrillated back to life. It was a shit show. Also apparently bitch can’t get any acting jobs because of her beauty, and that must totally suck. So being dealt some ugly cards is not such a bad thing. Bad hair day? No problem, who cares, there’s clusterfuck of lady whiskers on my golf ball right now taking priority.
But this dude who answered my ad was fantasy ugly, off the charts, he actually looked photoshopped. And! His profile pic was a straight-on headshot. Never do this! Know your angles, Quasimodo. Even Grace Kelly had the wherewithal to know how to tilt down 10 degrees, shift right every so slightly and look to the sky to the west as though it was cocktail hour in Monte Carlo. This fucker’s eyes were on all wrong, pinned to the sides of his head on different planes, and you could see up his nostrils, two dark portals like double garage doors into a retrofit Cro-Magnon skull. His face was craggy and crevassed in such a way a topographer would tell you it was Utah. I don’t want to talk about his hair at all or think about it ever again.
He had other profile pics but they were obscured with the overlay of the French flag and a rainbow, which means he is socially conscious. This is a plus for me! Feel the Bern! He also has friends who commented on his profile picture! This is the internet juice I live for: 27 “Likes” and here’s what some of them had to say: “So handsome!” “Dude! Looking good!” “George Clooney 2.0!”
So cute! Everyone loves this ugly mofo. His whole Facebook scroll down was filled with sweetness and good times. His girlfriend was smoking hot, too, but her Facebook was on the private settings and so was her Instagram. If she is thinking she is hiding her love of her ugly boyfriend from the rest of the world, she is sorely mistaken. Her Pinterest was filled with wedding boards consisting of Vera Wang dresses and Tiffany engagements rings and cakes with intricately sculpted fondant icing of snowflakes and shit. What a piece work. Why do men go along with that? I guess being ugly is a state of desperation? But even handsome men marry those types of women! It’s head scratcher, we’ll have to analyze that later. Let’s just think about ugly for now.
Ugly is a a subjective thing and there’s all kinds of categories. Like this guy is unfortunate ugly. Tragically ugly. Not a whole lot he could do about it but fix his hair and maybe wear a hat with a brim and a scarf and stick a cigar in his mouth and hide behind the billows of smoke.
Then there is ugly by design, like hipsters 2.0 or the cat lady, Jocelyn Wildenstein, with all the plastic surgery. There’s also ugly by proxy. You can actually get contact ugly if you are related to Donald Trump.
The worst kind of ugly is the ugly that comes from within and leaks out. Like Ted Cruz. Remember when he first came on to the scene, he looked like bumbling comedic actor Kevin Malone or Grandpa Munster? Hilarious memes, right? Like months ago @youngvulgarian on Twitter said: “How does Cruz always look both happy and sad? ‘I like lasagne but it’s not what I ordered,” his face says.’” Now every time Ted Cruz opens his mouth, he gets uglier and uglier by the syllable. He’s even uglier than Trump if that’s even possible. He is pure evil. He IS the Zodiac Killer. How can he possibly live ever that down?
And conversely but related, please someone make a Bernie Sanders Beanie Baby because every time I see that man, I feel like I’m looking at a basket full of Pomsky puppies. I just want to hug and kiss him and eat Ben & Jerry ice cream with him all day long. I love him so.
Anyway, so yes, ugly Craigslist guy came to see the apartment and lo and behold, he was not nearly so fug in person. He had gotten a haircut! Also he was tall, lanky and wearing slim jeans and a cute Penguin polo shirt AND he had swagger. He possessed that male version of the thing the French call “jolie-laide.” Ugly-beautiful. And he was confident in his ugliness. He had mojo. Women probably want to date him just to have an ugly boyfriend they think no one else wants to bone. The joke is on them. This guy is a true pussy magnet. He has charm and I can assess he probably some tongue game by the way he whistled and trilled while he walked around the backyard. His whack-doodle eyes that flew off on different planes in his photo were actually kind of bright and sparkly and when he smiled his Utah-landscaped face made these charming dimples and crinkles. Also he laughed at my jokes! Which is a bonus. Men hardly ever laugh at my jokes as they are always so busy assessing my sexual prowess. Prolly wondering what a walrus vagina looks like and how do they get to have a go.
His girlfriend didn’t come with him as he was checking out places that she might like based on her criteria. Ugly has to do all the work. Usually when I get the couples come see the place, it’s the woman I deal with. And statistically, everybody, one hundred percent, like all 5 of my tenants, who rents this fucking apartment ends up getting married! I told him that, not letting on I had already stalked his girlfriend’s Pinterest boards, he said lol yes, he and his girlfriend were planning a wedding but no date yet. Worth noting: He never referred to her as his “fiancee.” Is that a man thing or an ugly thing? Is it not a deal unless there is a date?
Things were going good between me and Ugly Guy, he loved the kitchen. Apparently the girlfriend likes to cook and the kitchen is chef-friendly with a gas stove and butcher block. Really cool tin ceiling. Hardwood floors throughout, washer and dryer, basement storage, parking! You should come see it. At one point near the end though, Betty barked upstairs and his craggy face corrugated into his Facebook mugshot and he told me in his current place the dog upstairs made click-click-click sounds with his nails on the floor which was why they want to move. Seriously. Click-click.
“Oh I love dogs,” he explained, “but my girlfriend hates them.” Ugly Guy’s Pinterest princess hate dogs. You know how they say in New York City you’re never more than two feet away from a rat or something like that? Well that’s what it’s like here with dogs. There’s dogs on the roofs here! You cannot possibly live in my house if you are not canine friendly. In fact, I don’t even want a tenant who doesn’t have a pet, be it furry or scaly or plastic or blow up.
So Ugly Guy left but his ugliness wafted and stayed with me for a few days. A lingering longing, like a zit to be popped. I prolly need to add his ugly mug on my Pinterest board for jokes: “Men I Want to Bone.” Maybe one day in his click-click free apartment, he’ll google himself and find it there and then wonder about the walrus that could have been his landlady. Ugly Guy, call me! Goo Goo G’Joob.
