A Question of Character

A couple of months ago, my (currently) housemates and I were busy searching for a place to stay. We had a very simple set of requirements :

- It has to be close to work. No more than 17.5 minutes door to door by the fastest mode of transport as applicable

- The distance between the home and the nearest grocery store shall not exceed 7 minutes by walk (4 minutes if walking briskly) for the average girl clad in no higher than 1.8 inch heels.

- There shall be a minimum average of 1.2 people per square meter from 6am to 2am on weekdays and 8am to 4am on Friday/Saturday nights.

R. finally found a place that meets all these requirements. I and I (just to clarify one of these I's is me, as in myself the author of this post, the other is one of my housemates who's name starts with I. I don't have MPD.. yet) saw the photos, fell in love with it and agreed to put a deposit on it.

Before we got the place however, the landlord wanted a character reference for each of us. Knowing almost no one in London, I volunteered the name of someone I was to work with in the near future. For the sake of simplicity let us call him X.

A couple of days later, we received an email from the person handling the lettings process saying "blah blah blah gas check blah blah telephone blah blah deposit blah NatWest blah.. and Ms. Sunjahta's character check is outstanding"

I was obviously thrilled. What a wonderful beginning. It is nice to know how well one is regarded by people one is mildly acquainted with. Of course, one is of the opinion that one is upholder of moral principles and is of excellent character. Affirmation of this, of course, pleases one no end.

Until I received the following email from X :

Hi Sujatha, Sorry for not being able to fill in your charcater (sic.) form. I'm travelling in Germany.. will do it as soon as i get back on monday. Regds, X

Once all outstanding items were resolved however, one did get the house and is now happily ensconced in above. Albeit a little bit miffed at 'satisfactory' character ref.


I started this post last week. Meant to get back to it. Hit Publish by mistake. TechnoDolt