Gastro-Communal Play — Act #2. Who’s the Man of the House?
The second story describes the grocery basket of the neighbors we had to live with.
Read the Act #1 in the previous article.
Setting
Russia, Moscow, Rublyovskoye shosse, 97, building 1, eleventh floor. An ordinary two-bedroom apartment with the owner living in the master bedroom.
The owner of the apartment was a thirty-year-old man. When we met, he seemed a little strange: he had a disheveled look and a shaggy beard. All confused — round and cozy. Nikolai had excellent taste and a sense of style, even in the food he adhered to beauty.
Nikolai, a native Muscovite, graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University. His profession can hardly be called profitable, so he lived on rent. We rented a room in the apartment where he lived. In addition, he rented another apartment inherited from his grandmother.
Sometimes he worked as a tutor, training the children of wealthy parents for the school exam in social studies. In the bathroom, I discovered that his household chemicals were from a well-known network brand: either his mother was engaged in network marketing, or he worked part-time — it was impossible to know. Looks, being deceived, he hadn’t much to suffer. During the six months that we lived with him, he even went to Italy on vacation.
He always sat in his room. I’m not sure exactly what he did all day, but I often heard movie dialogue and swearing. I think he was a gamer. A couple of times a month he went out to meet friends. On these days he would comb his beard, and put on trousers, a shirt, and a vest. The composition was crowned with a stylish small brimmed trilby hat.
In the morning he appeared. Shaggy, but always wearing an exquisite bathrobe. The guy wanted to lose weight but did not like moving. Remember? Cozy and plushy beard? Once he admitted that he did not see himself doing sport, so he chose a very unusual diet.
Scene 1. Diet
Even in nutrition, Nikolai adhered to style, notwithstanding how mundane the diet may have seemed. From 9 to 10 am he had breakfast — two fried eggs and tea without sugar. He was a terrible cook. So bad in fact, that even in an oiled pan with non-stick coating, he often burned eggs. He didn’t get upset, on the contrary, he would scrape the pan with a spoon, eating the rest of the non-stick coating along with the scrambled eggs.
In those times my wife and I would wake up for two or three hours in the morning, and fill up on coffee. We invariably cross paths with the owner of the apartment. While cooking, he talked about life, about rich students from the luxury village of Rublyovka and their armed guards, and talked about world culture. We were very fortunate to have such an intelligent landlord.
At 2–3 pm he would cook two burgers for lunch. He bought meat ready-made. Two pieces in a beautiful branded pack. The buns were also special. Burger ones. He flavored the burgers with the most delicious MSG and exquisitely harmful imported American sauces. “I like buying the original to improve the taste”, Nikolai would say.
During lunch, it was better not to be in the apartment since the intoxicating smell of branded cutlets, richy soaked in garlic and spices, got everywhere. For dinner at 6 pm there was yogurt or kefir with an apple. Sometimes he bought avocados or bananas.
One day, Nikolai began to buy ready-made food. He called the delivery and they brought him ready-to-eat meals packed in containers for 2–3 days. According to him, the experiment turned out to be interesting, but rather expensive.
A month of such food costs more than $400. Three months later, the usual burnt scrambled eggs, burgers and avocado returned.
Scene 2. Environmental
Sometimes friends came to Nikolai. For the first time, it was difficult for me to accept that outsiders were making noise until late. No one was rowdy or cursing, they just sometimes burst into laughter, playing a console on a large plasma. The guests disturbed my peace, so they were villains a priori.
Nikolai didn’t drink alcohol, but the guests did. To the credit of the youth, in the mornings we did not find a vulgar Russian set of “vodka — tomato juice — cucumbers”. In the trash were the noble remains of rum, martini (where all the inscriptions are in Italian) or whiskey with a dozen glasses! Bottles of Cola.
The owner himself invariably apologized “for making a little noise yesterday.” This cuteness made my teeth hurt.
Scene 3. Who’s the Man of the House?
Mom of course. Nikolai’s freedom ended with the arrival of his mother, a strong seventy-seven-year-old lady. Every week on Fridays, she visited her boy, brought goodies, cleaned his room, talked and removed the boy’s brain.
Sometimes a sound came out of the guy’s throat that I could not find a definition for: a scream, a choking squeal. He asked his mother to leave him alone and let him live in peace for a little while. Mom listened, nodded, and calmly chopped a healthy salad for him while brewing herbal tea. Cute, isn’t she?
To be continued. Read the Act#1, link below
