Selfish in the Macedonian Language

себично, на Макадонски Јазик...

I must start this rant off with a foreword. I LOVE my landlords. They are wonderful. Koce, the Dad is hilarious and is always lightning quick to respond to my apartment that seems to be always needing attention (2 weeks ago it was termites, last week it was a window I broke, this week it's the door on the wardrobe/closet--and I think I can hear termites again...). Slavica, the mom is adorable. She always wants to practice speaking English and she just so cute. Marija and Ana, the daughters are really kind and ask me to hang out with them a lot, its really just a great family.

BUT, the building we live in is shared by Koce's older brother and his family. They are good people, but I have become ridiculously frustrated with a recurring problem I face with the woman of the house. It is all centered around drying the laundry.

Living home every day is only the brother of my landlord and his wife, but they have two grown children who both have spouses and one grandchild. They come home every weekend and proceed to do all their laundry. The way our building is divided my landlords live on the first floor. Shaun's Landlords (the brother of my landlord is Shaun's Landlord) live on the second floor and Shaun and I live on the third floor. Our Apartments are divided half-way and we both have big balconies. There are also 2 additional balconies on the other sides of the houses on both floors.

Shaun's landlords insist on using his balcony (and the hallway right outside his apartment) in order to do their laundry, where as my Landlords do not come up the stairs with out asking if they can either while I am passing or via phone call. A quick word about the laundry, I have no way to understand how in the heck they need to do so much laundry. Its insane really.

Anyway...

My frustrations began when the little round plastic bucket that my clothespins were in disappeared from my balcony one day this past spring. All of my clothespins were then mixed in with Shaun's landlady's clothespins. I didn't think it was that big of a deal so I just considered them communal clothes pins, particularly since Shaun's landlady considers my balcony as communal, she hangs her laundry on my side at least once a week (and had very noisy clogs, and likes to hang it out at about 7:00 on Saturday and Sunday mornings...clip clop clip clop).

About a month ago I had just returned from a longer run and I was stretching (and really sweaty and gross) and Shaun's Landlady came into my apartment (I had the back door open for some fresh air) and made me escort her outside. She then began taking my clothes off of my laundry line (kind of throwing them at me) and showing me that I was using her clothes pins. She then showed me that mine differed from hers in size and she separated them for me. I was
frustrated because not only was I being forced to interrupt my stretching and my newly clean clothes were being thrown on my sweaty person, but I was being told not to use her clothespins, while this woman was hanging her laundry up on my side of the balcony (which is divided by the way, by a two and a half foot wall). I told her I had no problem using only my clothespins but that I thought I had more--and I asked her where the purple basket went, to which she responded "We will find it." I then told her that the side of the balcony that is mine is only for me and she needed to stop using it. She said ok. Two hours later my side was covered in her sheets and clothing. When she returned a few hours I reminded her and she apologized and said it wouldn't happen again.

Pictured above is Shaun's side with most of the crap they need to dry.