Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Ow, ow, ow, my knee!!!

This past weekend my friend Rachel got stuck with an "interesting" (to put it mildly) visitor in her apartment. The entire weekend was a comedy of annoyances and ridiculousness. Here is the story in her own words. Most names have been changed.
So, I get an email last Monday from one of my roommates, Christoffer. He just left to go to France for a week, and his email was something along the lines of, "Hey, just so you know, this girl might come this week and stay in my room. She is my advisor's friend's daughter, so just give her an extra key and whatever. Sorry for the late notice, I just found out this morning. Her name is Claire."
Later in the week, I get an email from Claire asking if it is ok that she comes in Thursday night - I told her I wasn't going to be around (birthday night) but that my other roommate, Suli, would be around and would let her in.
I did not meet Claire until Friday morning, when I was super hung over. I got up to go to work, and she is all peppy and asking me all these questions, which is fine. That wasn't the problem. She had nothing and knew nothing about the city (her fam lived here when she was like 5 for a year when her dad was on sabbatical) and didn't know how to get around. I gave her directions to DXX so she could come in and get set up with a map and other stuff that we give students when they arrive. So I went to work, and she came in a while later. She seemed really nice and sweet, but I also couldn't tell how old she was. She seemed like she was 17 or something. Finally, I asked her if she had studied abroad (to figure out if she went to college) and it came out that she was 21. Then she was talking about how she wanted to go to Tivoli, but felt weird about going to an amusement park by herself. Me, being a super nice person and having just met this seemingly nice person of the same age, invited her to come with my friends and I who were going to a concert at Tivoli that evening. She was super excited about it, and I felt good about myself (ha). I sent her on her way to see the sights during the day while I was at work, and she met me back at the office at 4:30.
She, myself and two of my other friends went to Tivoli right from work, and we ate at Wagamama. Everything until this point still seemed alright. There were a few moments where my friend Jan and I kind of looked at each other like "wtf??" in response to stuff she was saying. Like, Jan and I were talking about interesting things about Danes and Danish culture, and then Claire started contradicting us and telling us that it was different. Jan and I didn't say anything, but we were both kind of thinking "Um, ok, well we have lived here for a year . . . and you have been here for 8 hours. But right, whatever."
We left dinner, and we were in the park. Claire just about begged us to go on rides with her (each ride costs about 15 dollars - so we didnt want to go) but we told her she can do all the rides she wants and that we would wait for her. But Jan said the fun house was a blast, so we all bought a ticket to go in there. In the fun house there were those little hamster wheels, and there were a bunch of guys trying to make to all the way around it by pressing themselves with their hands and feet (do you know what I mean??). So, Claire decides to do it, even after I tell her that she is too short to be able to do it successfully. But she does it, falls, and then starts hopping around in a circle, holding her knee and whimpering. It wasn't a hard fall, or at least it didn't look like it. She didn't cry, wasn't screaming, . . . she banged her knee. She proceeded to sit down right in the middle of the play house, roll up her pant leg, and examine herself. She is like "I don't think I can walk, I need to sit here for a while." We were like . . . um . .. uh . . . rub it out. But she continued to sit there . . . in the middle of the floor, for like 5 min. Finally she got up and we went to leave - and she is walking like a pirate with a fucking peg-leg. She locked her knee and won't move it at all, claiming that she can't move it painlessly even a little . . . DUH. IT HURTS WHEN YOU BANG YOUR KNEE. But what 5 year old doesn't learn to shake it off, or walk it out??!! She walked around like that for the rest of the night. I kept thinking, this girl has to be joking . . . little kids don't even act like this. But no, she was serious. Then when we got to the concert, she sat down in the middle of the grounds. We met up with a bunch of my other friends, and they were all like "Rach, where did you find this girl?" She was sitting on the ground, asking if any of us knew anything about knee caps. She kept prodding it and poking it, saying it felt different and that she should probably go to the hospital. I just wanted to tell her, "Hey dummy, if you were hurt so bad that you required a hospital visit, a.) you probably would have cried, b.) you wouldn't be able to walk around at all (even if it was a peg leg walk) and c.) it would be too painful to prod and move the way you are currently doing!!!! We all just stood there, giving her a blank look, before I straight up told her that she didn't need to go to the hospital, and if she did she would be wasting her time and they wouldn't do anything for her.
A security guard came around and told her she needed to stand up, and she gave them a hard time about it. "Yeah, but I have an injured knee . . . " Sorry sweety, you can't sit on the ground in the middle of the concert. I almost told her that she should go home if it hurt too much.
Ok, so the concert went on pretty uneventfully, but I need to backtrack and tell you some of the other dumb shit stuff she said that stopped all of us in our tracks. There was something about how kids come out of public schools not learning anything (wasn't much of a hit), something about how most teachers don't have degrees in the fields they teach (dumb) - but then, the one that had me almost pee my pants. As a side note, my friend Sarah had been talking to her and was caught off guard when Claire was talking for a while about her father and who he was and what he did - then Sarah asked something about him and Claire was like "Oh, he's dead." Ok, so that's really sad. But we are standing and talking, and she was lamenting the fact that she had all these phone numbers of people to get in contact that were friends of her parents when they lived here, and that all the numbers seem to be wrong or the people have moved or whatever. "Yeah, and it is kinda sad because these were all the numbers that my mother could remember, and my dad is - well - my dad is dead, so he doesn't remember any either." I almost shit myself, and as horrible as it is I almost laughed in her face. My dad is too dead to remember . . . hmmm, no shit, that tends to happen. But who says that??!!
Anyway, the story goes on. The next morning, Saturday morning, she wakes me up at 8 am, telling me that she has to go to the hospital. She had spoken with her mom who was upset that she had been walking around on her knee all night. I told her, I was like "Look, you knee isn't swollen, or even bruised, you have been walking on it all night, it probably didn't help anything that you were walking around with it locked, but I don't think it is injured, and the danish docs aren't gonna give you anything or do anything". But no, that didn't stop her - she needed to make sure everything was ok because she had heard about some injuries that were unsafe to fly with because of the changing pressures - WTF??!! I gave up, I called her a cab and sent her on her way. I knew she wanted me to go with her, but I wasn't going to waste my morning on this bull shit. It was the most irritating thing ever. I really felt like I was dealing with a 5 year old - you know how when you are 5 and you need a band aid for everything even if you aren't bleeding. That's what this was, but worse. I couldn't even really be nice to her. OHHHH, AND when she got dressed to go to the emergency room, she put on 3 inch wedges!!!!!!!! I was like "Um, do you think with an injured knee those are the best shoes to be wearing??" And she was all like "Oh yeah, these are comfortable enough." But she still proceeded to walk like a peg-leg . . . all around too ridiculous for words.
She called me later on my roommates phone to tell me that "Thank god everything is ok! My knee is ok and nothing is wrong with it!" Then she asked me to come home so I could show her other stuff in the city. I told her "No, I can't I have other plans." Who does she think she is?? Who did she think I am?? I didn't know her . .. I wasn't her friend or her personal guide while she was in the city!!! She just expected me to drop everything. I told her some places to go, and told her I would see her later. Not too much happened after that. We talked a little while she packed her stuff . . . she asked me dumb questions, like whether or not her wine would break if she put it in her suitcase. I DONT KNOW, what do I look like, a fuckin sear??? Ha, I know these stupid things were probably not a big deal, but my patience with her had just worn so thin, and I just wanted her out of my apartment.
So that, in a nut-shell that wasn't so small, is my story about Claire. I can't imagine being her RA . . . I would have killed myself or her if I was your friend Alex. He must be a saint. Hope you enjoyed this epic tale, and I hope you never have to work with her. I am angry and annoyed just thinking about the whole thing. GOD.

The End.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I almost fell off of my bed...