Weird Guys: The Landlord and the Wine

When I got a job working for the federal government near the Los Angeles Airport, I found a little two-room apartment in the neighborhood called Westchester to the north of the airport. I made the mistake of thinking I should get on friendly terms with my landlord, get to know him better. After all, I was a new girl in a big strange city, and I thought he'd be the most likely person to build trust with.

I wondered about his family. Did he have a wife and kids? If I asked about them, wouldn't he likely regale me with boasting about his beautiful wife and wonderful kid(s), maybe show off some pictures? Of course maybe he'd say, "Well, I'm happily divorced" or "I'm an old bachelor" or whatever? Maybe he'd get the wrong idea, me asking if he had a wife, some young single woman asking about his wife, but likely nothing that couldn't be laughed off, right?

So when I passed him on the walkway, I said, "You know, I'm new here, and I'd like to get to know you and my neighbors better, so I'm wondering if you're married."

His answer, "My wife died last week."

Who was I to think maybe that wasn't the truth? "I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do? Maybe, dinner?" Honestly, I only made the offer out of courtesy, nothing else. 

His immediate answer, "What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!" He sounded a little too excited for someone whose "wife died last week."

"That's all right. I don't drink wine."

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"Nothing about what time, or where, or anything.

"No, really," as I thought fast, as I couldn't risk offending my landlord, "Maybe just some spaghetti, tomorrow, at 6?"

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"

"No, really, you don't have to bring anything. Just come over for spaghetti tomorrow at 6."

"What kind of wine do you like? I'll bring the wine!"

I began to understand the only way I was going to get out of this was to name a wine. The only one I could think of that went with spaghetti, or that went with--anything--was Blue Nun.

Then I went and called my mother to see if she'd be so kind as to come over and chaperone. She made flakey excuses to decline.

So the guy showed up at my door the next night with a bottle of Blue Nun big enough for an entire wedding party. I asked him why he bought such a large bottle. He made some flakey excuse about that was the only size bottle available.

I told him he'd have to leave right after dinner because I had to go see my mother about something. I know, I know, what a miserable excuse, but it was honestly the only one I could think of.

I was careful to remain distant from the guy, to keep the conversation formal, to put his plate of spaghetti at one end of the table and mine at the other. I drank as little wine as possible, I may have even served myself a Coke, and got him out of there as soon as I could get away with. This was my landlord, after all. I couldn't risk offending him, but I wasn't about to give him any more ideas than he apparently already had.

When he left, I said he was forgetting his bottle of Blue Nun. He said I could keep it. I went out and drove around for a while so I'd look like I really had left to go see my mother.

I'm sure the guy didn't even have a wife, not one that had just died last week, anyway. Either she didn't exist or she was conveniently somewhere else, in another city or even another country. What kind of a guy uses a fake dead wife to try and force wine on someone who owes him rent every month?