I recently signed the lease for a new apartment. Although it is not tremendously bigger than my current apartment, it does have a bedroom and a dishwasher. Right now, I have neither of those things. It is also on the top floor of a converted brownstone, so I will no longer be awakened at six o’clock in the morning by thudding footsteps overhead; it is rear-facing, so I will no longer be awakened at seven o’clock in the morning by people slamming the trashcan lids, or at eight o’clock in the morning by impatient motorists honking at the garbage truck. (I may be able to bypass the morning entirely!) And if a terrorist decides to blow up the synagogue across the street, I might not die.

Goblin and I love this neighborhood and did not want to move very far. If my dog is going to rule Central Park as an occupied territory, a more distant commute would have been inconvenient. (She would never trust it to a viceroy. She is a very paws-on sort of empress.) Luckily, our new apartment is in the building next door to our old apartment.

The thing is, the new apartment was quite controversial. Three months ago, before she could possibly know what was going to be available, I wrote to my building manager and asked her to let me know if a larger apartment was opening up in this or one of their nearby buildings at the end of my lease. I never heard from her again, so I started searching through a broker, who showed me this apartment in the building next door, which is owned by my current management company. So I called the building manager and said, hey, you did not let me know about this one apartment like I asked you, but even though I found it through an agent, could I get it without paying the broker’s fee?

She said no.

She is a bitch.

I mean, I felt bad that I was trying to get out of paying the broker (who I really quite liked) three thousand dollars for the fifteen minutes of her time it took to show me the apartment, but this is New York City: you snooze, you lose. I suppose I was the one snoozing: I had to pay the fee, and now I cannot afford to buy a stick of furniture. I suppose it is better this way for my karma, but we shall see what my karma has to say when it is sitting on the floor, eating ramen noodles out of the bag.