Penelope Penis

Back when I was in grad school, I was between leases for a month or so one summer, and I was living in a friend-of-a-friend's spare room. It was very convenient for me because it was just a few blocks from the previous gaff and I moved everything I owned in a couple of trips with a mate's sedan. It worked out ok for Penelope too, because she was a teacher and the wedge I forked over funded her summer vacation.

It was a pretty little house, two-up, two-down separated by a narrow staircase, with a kitchen and bathroom at the rear of the ground floor. Very similar to the house in this post actually. The dining room was my favorite spot because it caught the late morning sun and was painted in some beautiful 70's-style colors. I only lived there for a few weeks, but I managed to keep up my tradition of locking myself out of every house I've ever lived in at least once. This time around it was right before I was supposed to leave for a trip to Amsterdam and ended up inconveniencing quite a few people. It's no coincidence that where I live now has a keypad entry. 

The first week I lived there Penelope was away on the vacation I mentioned I funded. I cooked some fish either the second or third night and it was a bit of a disaster. In fact, the house still stank of fish when Penelope came back. The night before she returned, I went back to my old place a few blocks away where my friends/former housemates were still living. I'd only been gone a week, so it felt just like any other Friday evening which, in those days, meant sinking a few cans, messing around on the playstation and hot knifing in the kitchen until at least 2:00 am. The only difference was I had to stagger a few hundred yards to bed afterwards instead of just crawling up the stairs.

I was fast asleep at whatever time Penelope got back from her trip, and I wasn't on hand to help with her suitcases or to explain away the ungodly fish smell. Or the ding in the living room wall that appeared the morning after I moved my desk in. I didn't even leave a "welcome home" post-it note on the stairs. She clunked around downstairs for a bit, and when that didn't work, she dragged her suitcases up and down the stairs a couple of times. At least that was what it sounded like. Whatever it was, I did the right thing and got up to say "Hi" and we had an awkward conversation which ended with Penelope leaving to buy air freshener and groceries, and me returning to bed. I think she was expecting me to have stocked the fridge, but I was surviving on a diet of bran flakes, baked potatoes, canned tuna and instant coffee at the time, none of which took her fancy. She definitely wasn't planning on the smell that was hanging about the whole plaice (!)

When I got back up it was mid-afternoon, the fridge was full of fruit and veg, the smell of fish had been replaced with a sort of plastic coconut odor and Penelope was lying on the couch watching TV. I sat down in my dressing gown on the only other seat, which was a flimsy deckchair thing, and tried to feign interest in whatever she was watching. Penelope was concerned that I hadn't had anything to eat yet, so I fixed up some bran flakes and milk and ate them in front of the telly. She was also exceedingly put out by fact I had been lying in bed until the afternoon and didn't seem swayed by my explanation that I had been up late. I think I was about twenty-seven at the time, so it was a while since anyone had commented on my bedtime; I tried to remember that she was a teacher and was probably used to laying down the rules etc. 

At some point that afternoon I got a call from my buddy Cuthbert Oceans inviting me to ride over to Birmingham and visit Kevin "yes Kev" Bartholomew's new apartment for the evening. Penelope actually went to primary school with Kev, so I suggested she might tag along, but she rejected the opportunity. Kev's new pad was anything but impressive; it was a tiny old-fashioned hovel to put it politely, but Kev, Cuthbert, our friend Pork Shoulder and myself sat around chatting on the uncomfortable orange couch until the small hours nevertheless. While driving back down the A45 in Cuthbert's late 80's VW Polo Coupe, we all ruled out Kev's place as a potential crash-over spot. We figured one of the three of us would just have to move over to Brum. In the end the other two both did and I moved to Berkeley. Incidentally, the car we travelled in inspired me to buy my first car, a VW Golf mark I, not that much later. I would have bought Cuthbert's car except he wouldn't sell it to me, even for the thousand quid I offered him. I had the last laugh though because six months later the thing fell to pieces and he had to pay to scrap it.

Penelope had long since turned in when I got back from Kev's. The next afternoon she reminded me, over my bran flakes and the EastEnders omnibus edition, that the next day was Monday with a capital M and that I had better get an early or at least earlier night. I did mention that her house was located twenty minutes from campus and that I was confident I could make it there by my usual 10:30. In fact in my lab when we would leave at night people would say "see you at coffee tomorrow," since the group always met for coffee in the same place every day. Besides, anyone who's anyone knows you can't do serious science first thing in the morning. I did my best to be still in bed every time Penelope left for work all the time I lived there, just in the hope that she would find it annoying. 

One day, towards the end of my stay, I was around in the morning when the mail dropped through the letterbox. None of it was for me - how could it be - but I managed to find the energy to bend down, pick the envelopes off the mat and put them down somewhere more suitable. My landlord's name wasn't really Penelope, but what is true is that her last name began with "P" and it was one letter away from "penis." The reason for mentioning this is that one of the letters was actually addressed to "Real Name Penis"! Could this be a mistake, or a deliberate error? Who cares; it was hilarious either way. I never mentioned this to Penelope - it never really came up (intended) - but I did share it with all our mutual friends. In our social group she was known as Penelope Penis after that.