Our landlord, Bob, phone half an hour before we were due to meet him for the final inspection of the property we vacated yesterday.

The accumulated strife and frustration which often arise when dealing with a landlord had become focused on this last encounter with him. Without fully knowing it I, and the member who had dealt with Bob in the past, were keyed up for an ‘encounter’. After all most of our meetings were less than easy-going ones. We were conditioned to anticipate trouble. However the place was clean, the holes in the walls were filled, and no damage had been done. And, AND a huge amount of working meditation had gone into dry walling the basement to make it into our meeting room. We had left the place better than we had found it.

Still, the final ‘walk through’ loomed. “Would we get our $900 damage deposit back”? “Would we have to make a case”? Bob on the phone, “Hi. No need to do the walk-through”, “Everything is immaculate”. “You can pick up the damage deposit cheque tomorrow”.

For all the frustrating phone calls about the heating system malfunctioning, the calls pleading for permission to put up light fixture, for all of the receipts still unpaid, I put my hands together and say, THANKS. Thanks for showing me, once again the assumed adversarial relationship with landlords, workmen, and officials of every kind. Thanks because where else is one going to learn to go deeper than fear, frustration, defensiveness and fury than in the hands of individuals one feels powerless to counter.

Tomorrow I will be dealing with the power company and the phone company. Actually, I’ll be dealing with individuals doing the best they can to do their job to provide a service, to customers who are often unhappy even before they arrive at their door.