\nYears ago, my friend lived in a building that was grand on the outside, but cut up into small apartments on the inside. I’m not sure how many it contained, but we imagined at least four.<\/p>\n
\nRent at that place was cheap, which he needed when he moved in, since he was very poor. He was a pragmatist, however, so he gained prosperity while living there. Hence, perhaps a year and a half later, he moved out to a much more expensive and spacious place. Don’t get me wrong; he was still far below “middle class.” Nonetheless, his standard of living had vastly improved, even while remaining under that threshold.<\/p>\n
\nI’m getting ahead of myself, however. At the cheap place I mentioned first, nobody had a mailbox. As I understand it, the way the mail was handled was that the postal worker left it all on a table inside the entrance of the building. Occupants would then sift through said pile to retrieve their own mail.<\/p>\n
\nThat system seemed to work flawlessly. However, one peculiarity my friend noticed was that nearly everyone in the building claimed their address as “apartment 2.” Since each’s address also included their own name, each knew by that which mail was theirs. Yet, in a building where at least four people, but likely six or more, all occupied bachelor apartments, it seemed singular that so many claimed their apartment to be “apartment 2.”<\/p>\n
\nMy friend thought this was absurd. I think he was the only occupant who claimed a different apartment number on his address. Looking back, though, I’m not sure there were numbers on the doors. He’d simply been told, when he’d arrived, which apartment he had, and had remembered that. I think the person who had rented him the suite had been there for ten minutes, never to be seen again. To my knowledge there was no on-site management. Yet, nothing ever seemed to go wrong in the building, from what I heard. The place seemed to operate like a ship adrift, yet seaworthy.<\/p>\n
\nI visited my friend often in that building, but almost never saw anyone else in the hall. He said that he had brought up the fact that everyone seemed to live in apartment 2 one day, by way of making conversation, when he had encountered a co-occupant also picking up their mail. The other person didn’t find the situation funny, and quickly retreated to their room. Nobody in that building, my friend reported, seemed capable of a sense of humour. On the rare times he did encounter someone else in the hall, they always seemed furtive.<\/p>\n
\nThe informality of no-one caring what number their suite actually was, stemming perhaps from there being no numbers on the doors, wasn’t hard to believe there and then. Unfriendliness and paranoia weren’t rare to encounter, either. Big money has, to my knowledge, taken over that town now. One wonders where all the occupants of “apartment 2” would eventually land, and if they would see each other again. Moreover, how many would move on to actually living in “apartment 2,” wherever they went from there?<\/p>\nJack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane,<\/a> Campbell River, BC.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor mentions a curiosity he’s always loved. Years ago, my friend lived in a building that was grand on the outside, but cut up into small apartments on the inside. I’m …<\/p>\n