Backed Into a Corner
November 30th 2011 21:00
The beauty of living in a good neighbourhood means that almost every time my intercom rings, it’s someone I know. Until last Sunday night that is.
I answered it, thinking it was Brett who decided to drop by unannounced. Okay, you could say that is unusual. But not impossible, especially when I haven’t seen him for about a month.
Instead, I got a stranger on the other end. Very polite but a stranger nevertheless.
For some reason, I went outside to see who he was. He handed me a business card and explained he was the property manager for a unit in my building. The tenant had vacated it but left the keys in the unit. He even showed me an email from the alleged tenant on his smart phone just to prove he was legit.
But something niggled at me and made me hesitate. Just then, he decided to have a go at me. “Well, if you’re going to be like this, I will just keep ringing the intercoms until someone lets me in.”
I walked off. But all of a sudden, I spun around in a fit of anger. Like an animal that had been backed into a corner, I took the attitude of if you want to fight, let’s have a fight.
Next thing I knew, I went back to him and started yelling at him. “I don’t know who you are so I have a right to hesitate before letting you in. How would you like it if I turned up at your place demanding to be let in when you don’t know me from a bar of soap? And there’s no need to get angry. If you don’t leave me alone, I will call the police!”
“Call the police!” he yelled back as I walked off.
It was not until about fifteen minutes later that I realised why I was so hesitant about letting him in: If he was the property manager, he should have a spare set of keys. Not only that, his business card did not have a photo on it so it didn’t mean anything. Nor did his business card mention he was a property manager. But what really did it was how he suddenly turned on me; if he was legitimate then he would understand my hesitation.
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