Today, the landlady tried to accuse me of not locking the front gate when I come back "late at night". Given that I generally stagger back home at 7:30 pm, exhausted, roll into a ball trying to ease the stiffness of my hypothyroid muscles, and never go out again, and that I always re-lock the front gate when I find it locked, I must say I took real offense to that.
Why? Because she blamed me first, and that makes me feel like I'm falling prey to some ridiculous stereotype: ALL foreigners stay out late partying all the time and come back late and carelessly don't lock things.
Central Phnom Penh can actually be kind of a rough neighborhood, and there are these drug dealers/addicts that pool around the alleyway out front after hours. If you leave the gate unlocked, they can get inside the apartment complex and do random stuff (honestly, I'm not sure what they could possibly do that's so bad, except make noise I guess).
Anyway, there were words. Why should I be the one she blames?
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