Sunday, March 12, 2006

What leaving sounds like

One of my 24 rentals in August was to 2 Cambodian sisters, So+heara & Monine+h Bin. So+heara's legal name at the time was Khema Ke0. When I asked her why she was changing her name to So+heara Bin, she said that she wanted "something more American that people could pronounce." haha. Anyway, Khema/Sotheara was a fairly needy tenant, and would come into the office nearly every day for one thing or another. She would always say, "I come to see you because you understand me. I talk on the phone but maybe you don't understand. So I come to office to see you." Because of the lack of compassion or patience of anyone else in the office, I was always called out to speak with her. Co-workers would call my extension and say, "K-Mart is here to see you." And Khema/Sotheara would overhear this and get so excited and say, "You remember my name!" Little did she know they were making fun of her. Anyway, she finally settled into her apartment, but I would still occasionally hear from her when there was a problem. She really liked me, so she would call me for any problem she was having, including emergency maintenance issues at 10pm. This is the voicemail she left when a water pipe burst in the building.

Last week, I decided to send a personal letter to many of the residents that I rented to. I wanted to let them know that I was leaving the company, and I also used it as a sleazy way to distribute my Coldwell Banker business card to drum up some business. But mostly, it was to let them know that I would be leaving, since many of them had my cell phone number on speed dial for emergencies, like "water in the floor." ("My clothes is a not dry, it's a wet." HA! She kills me!) Anyway, So+heara got my letter, and these were the
first and second voicemails she left me.

Doesn't that just make you want to call her? If you have the time?

Oh So+heara Bin, you break my heart, and I'll miss you too.

** Names have been annoyingly modified just incase they google themselves and find Straightgirlslummingit at the top of the list (which it was.)

3 Comments:

At March 13, 2006 at 3:07 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good lord! How did you ever understand her?

 
At March 14, 2006 at 10:36 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

No kidding. Bless her heart, though, she sounds like a sweetheart. I totally busted up laughing at the first voicemail. ;-)

Jenn

 
At March 20, 2006 at 7:54 PM, Blogger Melissa said...

HA! I finally got to listen to these. She sounds sweet... and I can totally see why you chose to leave. :)

 

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