Hey Washington: This Can Go All the Way Bad, You Know

BootsGPT. I’ve written almost 4,000 Writing Boots posts over the last 15 years. When I search for pieces that apply to our moment, I usually find one—like this, which was also adapted for my book, An Effort to Understand. —DM

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I once lived in a condo building that had seven units.

The building was three levels.

The two families on the ground level were sane. 

The three families on the top level were sane.

The two people on the middle level were a little nutty to begin with, and in the years we lived together, they drove each other all the rest of the way insane.

He was a 30-something, exacting, gossipy worrywart with an integrity problem by day, and a techno-music-partying maniac by night.

Whereas, 24/7, she was a fearful, paranoid, middle-aged grumbler who wondered constantly, and correctly, if she had moved into the wrong building.

Our association meetings started out fun. Then they became dysfunctional. Then they ceased altogether.

Because whereas the rest of us voted on questions of building maintenance—whether or not we needed a new roof, whether we should hire someone to shovel the snow, how to resurface the hallway floor—the two middle-floor crazies worried those issues endlessly, discussing them at great length with one another in hallway whispers.

And then they fought over them, but not with one another. Via email, or behind each other’s backs, in the kitchens of the sane people. (Which was entertaining, as each did perfect a spot-on impression of the other.)

Which one of these people was right and which was more wrong? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! As if that mattered at all.

After a couple of years, it became clear that we all had to move away, because these two had driven each other batshit, poisonous, total electrical melt-down, choking smoke, put-your-hand-on-a-hot-stove-and-call-it-a-flower crazy—and their dynamic had permeated the entire building and all its inhabitants in such a way that we simply could not make sensible decisions, even though our own precious property value was at stake.

And so we all did. We all moved away.

That was all along time ago.

I wonder why I am thinking about it these days.