Sometimes you find yourself bound within the complex folds of the strangest conversations or situations, without any idea of which rabbit hole you fell down to get there. In the interest of having something to add to your blog it is best to try and follow these streams of eccentricity, idiosyncrasy and sheer unfathomable weirdness to their end and hope that everything will turn out okay. For example…
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” The woman from the lettings agency said sheepishly, as she finished showing us around the flat.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Are you lesbians?”
This was not a question I thought I would be asked when viewing property, but it proved to be a reoccurring one.
I burst out laughing, while my flatmate went bright red. “No, we’re not,” I said.
“I’m really sorry,” the lettings lady said quickly while looking at the floor. “I was trying to listen to your conversation to figure out if you were or not, it’s just that the landlord doesn’t want sharers.”
“Oh.”
“You could always pretend to be lesbians?”
We had just graduated from university, my flatmate was staying on an extra year to do her PGCE and I didn’t want to move back home. Although it would have saved my mother and myself a lot of money, as I wouldn’t have to spend as much on rent or council tax, and she wouldn’t have to spend a fortune phoning me every five minutes to make sure I wasn’t pregnant, on drugs, or starving to death from being unable to afford food. Presumably as a result of spending all my money on pregnancy tests and crack cocaine.
The whole money situation wasn’t actually too bad, but for a two bedroom flat we’d be looking at over £350 a month each; more than either of us could afford. So we decided we would have to look at one bedroom flats where we could convert the living room into a second bedroom.
“But that means you won’t have a living room,” one observant lettings agent informed me.
“Yes,” I said. I felt this really covered everything that needed to be said, but I was compelled to fill the following silence as the letting agent in question tried to get to grips with this alien concept. “Basically we don’t want to commute, and this is the only way we can afford to stay in the city.
“Oh, okay. Well I think I may have one property that would be suitable.
“Oh great!” I said, warming to the man slightly.
We met him outside the property the next day and found that the place was perfect. Apart from the fact that you had to walk through the living room to get to the kitchen and the living room itself fed directly off the hall without a door in between. This was not, on the whole, indicative to the privacy one expects from a bedroom.
“How exactly did you see this working?” I asked.
“Well I thought you could construct some kind of temporary partition,” he started, spreading his arms in an artistic fashion reminiscent of Laurence Llewelyn Bowen.
My flatmate and I looked at each other.
“Really?” I said.
He nodded enthusiastically.
“We’ll think about it,” I lied.
