Life in an apartment complex can be interesting. Just checking the mail, or taking out the trash, can make me wonder, who are the people with whom I share this space?
Take, for example, the tires. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have gone into the tiny package room and found 3 or 4 full sized car (or truck?) tires taking up pretty much all of the floor space. This happens much more frequently than one would expect, even in a building that probably houses a few hundred people. And it raises a bunch of questions… Who is ordering these tires? How many people actually change their own tires? Who delivers car tires? Is this something on Amazon that I’ve managed to miss all these years?
Last night, I took some recycling down and was treated to the odd sight of three large helium balloons (partially but not fully deflated) floating above the dumpsters. Which made me wonder, why on earth did they not deflate the balloons? It just seems logical to me that if you’re throwing out a balloon, you’d, um, deflate it? (Just me?)
Pretty much every week, there’s something that makes me do a double take. It’s interesting to consider just how different people can be. I may not live with anyone right now, but I do live alongside some not-familiar-but-very-interesting fellow humans.
I’ve always been someone who likes looking around me, and wondering what leads people to make certain choices (e.g., why IS their front door bright green?). Is anyone else like this? Am I just weird? (Wait, maybe don’t answer that…)
I was trying to figure out why none of my apartments had common package delivery rooms…oh yes because I moved out of my last apartment in 2005 back in the days before we got everything on Amazon. We did have a shared dumpster but I don’t remember any outrageous shared living stories.
My best/worst apartment mail mixup story was that time that I got home from a work trip in the wee hours and was too tired to go to bed or to think rationally. I hauled in an armload of mail from my mailbox and started to sort through it. There was a magazine wrapped in an opaque wrapper and I blindly tore into it and started flipping the pages. It took a long time for my brain to process that I was looking at a male porno magazine. It was addressed to my neighbor and had been put in my mailbox by mistake. Well, I’d already opened it and that there are lots of ways to break the ice with a neighbor but “hey I got your porn by mistake and I was half asleep and opened it” did not feel like one of them. I simply threw it away.
*dies laughing*
I just… wow. Wow. You made the right choice. I might have shredded it, to be honest.
The worst I’ve had is a car & driver-type magazine that was supposed to go to the guy with the ancient, leaking Subaru with the chronically under-inflated tires. (Maybe, um, he needs to order tires?) I took it up to his apartment. I figured it was my good deed for the day.
Hahahaha. That’s a winner!
I would totally wonder all those things too then quickly tell myself not to spend too much time thinking about it because it’s impossible to understand why other people do the things they do! Ha ha.
THIS. Absolutely, this. I just don’t get it. People are just weird. (I should have written about the guy who takes over the community room to do work and sits there with his flip flops [regardless of weather] off, in bare feet. There are not enough ewwws in the world…)
I desperately wanted to buy a house with a red door. I love a house with a bright door – red, green, blue. It’s just a pop of color that really makes me happy. Alas, we have screen doors, so it doesn’t matter what color the front door is because you can’t see it anyway. I’m tempted to spray paint the screen door red just to see what will happen.
The car tire thing is perplexing. It’s easy just to go to Costco or Discount Tire and get them all replaced and installed. Why would you do that yourself?! It seems definitely too hard for me.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t want a bright door – just that I want to know why they made the choice. Favorite color? Some other reason?
Also, paint the screen door(s). Really. It seems like it would be relatively low effort for the reward, to be honest. 🙂
And yes! I never see anyone DO anything with the tires… they order them, but then what? It’s a mystery, for sure.
YOU CAN ORDER TIRES? I mean, I feel like this is a great life hack. But also— I don’t think anyone who lives in my house could put a tire on a car, so…
Well, there is that. But also – ordering tires? (I seriously am going to do a search… I’m way too curious, now, about who ships tires?!)
LOL, people can be so “interesting”! I think I’m too easily annoyed these days to live in an apartment block, but obviously if I was alone I would probably have to do that. I guess it would at least be entertaining The thing with the balloons is hilarious!
They were still there last night! (No Sunday trash collection.)
I mean, who wouldn’t deflate balloons? So weird. (And yes, people are just… weird. :>)
Okay, we DID order tires this year. It was through a specific website recommended by our mechanic. There was a tire shortage and we couldn’t buy them locally. It was AMAZING! They were a great price and delivered right to our door. We didn’t install them, but since our mechanics couldn’t get them and WE couldn’t get them locally either, it was our only option.
I am dying with you about Birchie’s experience.
People-watching is endlessly entertaining.
Ack! You’ve DONE IT! You need to email Sarah immediately. I am so curious – was it a tire place? (I mean, I’ve never seen them on Amazon but one never knows…)
People watching is the best use of time, hands down. Well, other than sleeping and reading. 🙂
I definitely know of people who have ordered tires online before – and then you just take it to the mechanic to get it put on! (Unless you can do it yourself.) However, the fact that you have someone who is getting tires FREQUENTLY is odd. Are they some sort of black market tire dealer? I NEED TO KNOW.
Stephany, YES! You read my mind! I took out part of that post that asked, who orders so many tires? Is there a black market?? We need to know! I also never see – or hear – them being removed from the package closet, so I can’t get a handle on who’s ordering them. Next on my list is the person who orders Hello Fresh then doesn’t come down to retrieve it, so it starts to thaw and… ew. 😉
I love how observant you are and that you pay attention to so many details. You wouldn’t believe how many people go through life NEVER taking a double take or thinking about the people around them. I love that about you.
I know! I always wonder about those people. I try to pay attention to *everything*. Maybe that makes me nosy, but… hey, I like to know what’s going on around me!