So I’m moving, right, and so is John, and so we’ve got to clean out the old apartment. I’m taking most of the furniture, this was decided ahead of time, and I told Katsu that I wanted a few things for sure.

1) the red velvet loveseat

2) the round coffee table

3) the orange drafting table

I didn’t think to fully itemize during our conversations, but there was ONE more item I’ve really taken a liking to over the years: this weird green thing in our bedroom. It’s kind of like a cabinet on legs, and it’s great for holding blankets. We found it on the street, what a bargain! But I didn’t mention the green thing when I told Katsu what I wanted, and afterwards I didn’t give it a second thought.

Apparently though, during my absence, Katsu has been trying to gift the furniture away to anyone who happens to walk by. I urged him to offer things to his sisters and brother (I mean, their aunt practically furnished our whole living room), but I didn’t expect him to, say, foist our belongings on the upstairs neighbors, who, as it happens, will likely take the old apartment once we’re gone. Turns out the upstairs neighbors are kind of keen on a bunch of our stuff – this wooden chair from the back room, this high-top white table I had actually planned to use in my new place, and, of course, the green thing. He tells me this on the phone the other night, super excited and happy, that they’re going to take all this stuff off our hands.

Now, granted. I didn’t tell him I wanted the green thing. It wasn’t on my list. I just assumed I was getting everything we had, and I was unclear with him about my expectations. But where normally this would be a simple case of misunderstanding, here I’m really between a rock and a hard place. The upstairs neighbors just had a baby, and the doctors found a malignant tumor behind his eye. (I KNOW. SO SAD.) So like, how can I go up to them and be, hey, sorry your kid’s got cancer, but I was sort of planning on taking the green thing with me? I mean, I really can’t, right?

… right?