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[quarrel]

I found a note on my door Monday saying I still owed rent (plus a $50 late fee now). I half-expected as much. I'd forgotten to deposit my last pay period's check and my account had dwindled to the point where a rent check would bounce. I had just put two checks in the bank, but that was the day before I paid rent, and chances were good they'd not cleared yet. So, the note didn't surprise me.

As Saturday was the first day I had to get to the bank and cut a money order, I strolled out the door around 1:00, believing the bank to be open until 3:00. Alas, it closes at 1:00. Great. Since I'm there anyway, I withdraw some needed pocket cash from the automated teller and notice that my rent check had been cashed. Back to the apartment with proof I went! After being what felt like the only visitor that the solitary worker in the office had all day, we found the problem. My payment had been credited to the wrong tennant. Problem easily rectified after some calls to remember how to make the computer do that.

I like the way these apartments look. The buildings are older than average...old enough that they don't look like every other off-white stucco house and apartment complex in southern California, yet not so old that they remind you of the Brady Bunch. Every place has a corner patio. The property is fenced in, though people are always leaving the pedestrian gate ajar. Up until about two weeks ago the driveway gate was also permanently wide open. It had something to do with the motor breaking so often they stopped bothering to use it at all. There are still five-car-deep backups at the gate even now since so many tenants have yet to develop the habit of keeping their keycards in a convenient location. A lot of them probably still forget to bring it with them entirely.

I got to meet the next-door neighbor for the first time today. His name is Kirk. He's an elderly gentleman who just got out of the hospital about a month ago. I don't know what he was in for; he didn't say and I didn't ask. I had thought the primary occupants over there were a middle-aged married couple with at least one kid, since that's all I've ever seen. The way Kirk spoke, it was more like they were living with him than vice-versa. Traditionally I've been very bad with neighbors. I'm doing better here than ever before...I actually know the names of two of them.