THE WISDOM OF MADMOISELLE BOUGEOIS

LIZ SAYS: She said never let them in. She was right. They are unbalanced. Madame Bourgeois is our guardienne. Something akin to a doorman in the US. She is very observant and talented. She does fabulous drawings in her small room. She plays piano. She is very calm and cool, a balanced woman, an admirable woman.
Our downstairs neighbors have complained about dust, water,noise and they lie.Yesterday, I realized how much is fantasy and how much is reality. Fresh from vacation, I had forgotten the stress that the remodeling had put on us. It's easy for the stress to become normal. The waiting, the constant complaining, the noise, the annoyance becomes normal and it's easy to forget that there is more to life than the aforementioned. The painter showed up late again, but the contractor had to pound in the hinge on the door. Cue, the downstairs neighbor. Up she comes complaining about the dust. There was no dust. The door hinge was banged, the painter was painting but there she was complaining that the dust was bothering her.
At that moment, I realized that her complaints were based on something other than reality. It was a painful moment. I don't like to be accused of something that I didn't do. And here I am face to face with someone who is just lying to me, face to face. She willfully 'misunderstood' my broken french so she would be have the upper hand. While we were on vacation, she had left a note, saying that the water from the plants had flowed down to her window to leave it marked with calcium deposits. This was physically impossible just like the dust. Silly me, I had tried to be friendly with these people, but they know no such thing as friendship and co-operation. Everything is an assault, the sky falls on their heads. I should have listened to Madame Bougeois and never opened the door.
My most logical thought is that they got used to the apartment being empty. Now that someone lives here, they can't stand it. The thing is, I don't think they can help it. They actually think the world is against them. They really do think we have the superpowers of dust and calcium deposits. The whole family seems that way, mother, son, father. Everything is a problem. But, its all things I could never imagine.
Eventually, soon, the workers will be finished. I wonder what they will imagine we will do next. I'd like to be able to bend spoons.