Mildly Speaking, I'm PISSED!

Word of the day:  phlegmatic \fleg-MAT-ik\ adjective: 1 : resembling, consisting of, or producing the humor phlegm.  *2 : having or showing a slow and stolid temperament.

"Help others get ahead.  You will always stand taller with someone else on your shoulders."  Bob Moawad, Business Leader

I’m NOT a happy camper this morning.  On Friday, as a courtesy, I apprised my landlord/housemate that I would be going to Bristol for the weekend and would probably return on Monday night after work.  However, my plans changed and I needed to return to DC early and therefore I’d be home on Sunday night opposed to Monday night.  I sent an email to my landlord/housemate that I’d be coming back early.

Last night when I got to DC, I went to the Cyberstop Café, a hangout place of mine, to check my email and see if anyone was around whom I know.  I received the following email from my landlord/housemate:

Sunday report:

Thanks for your e-mail telling me you'll return tomorrow.  Knowing this, I won't send out a missing person reporrt!

It turns out that my niece from Mo. (unexpected) in addition to my brother and his wife (expected) will all be here overnight tonight.  So I hope you won't mind my allowing my niece to sleep in your bed tonight.  Tomorrow, I'll drive her to W. Virginia where she's taking a training course.  I'll change the sheets before and after so it will be back to how you left it by Monday evening.

Hope you're achieving all you planned this weekend!

Margaret

It is my impression that this email in its “spirit” is of a friendly, kind, nice, and polite tone.  However, in its “effect”, it is a rather full of assumptions, an opportunity test, and most importantly; demonstrates imposed compromise, unthoughtfullness  and inconsideration.  Given the fact that my relationship to Margaret is that of a tenant, it is therefore a business relationship.  Not a friendship. A business relationship which first and foremost, I prefer to act in amicable fashion.

Let me explain my perspective on this message from Margaret.  As Margaret’s tenant, she is assuming it is OK for her to allow someone else (a rank stranger to me) to not only enter my private space without my consent, but to furthermore allow them to sleep in my bed without consulting me prior to arbitrarily making a "go ahead" decision.   Furthermore, absent that courtesy, her decision displaced me and I had to sleep in my car overnight following what is normally a 5-1/2 hour drive, but due to accidents was a 7 hour drive from Bristol.  The drive was followed by a 65 hour work week.  Needlesstosay, I was exhausted.  So exhausted that it was easier to sleep in my car than to risk a potential disagreement, or at least deal with people having to move around when I got home.  This extended into Monday as I was faced with having to arrive late for work and fabricate an “excuse” for being late so as I don’t appear to my  boss as ‘unreliable”.  This caused me to have to compromise my own integrity.  That causes me PAIN, inner pain, unrest, and anxiety.  I feel I was forced to do something I would not do even in "have to" conditions.