Tuesday, January 26th, 2021

I only write checks once a year. That’s how rent is handled: the tenant writes a full year’s worth of checks in advance and hands them to the landlord. Luckily, I paid attention to where I put the checkbook last year. I know that the amount won’t change. When I first got the lease, it said that the landlady could raise the amount by a little bit each year. I knew of a lawyer who would look over leases for free for immigrants in their first year. He suggested that I ask that they raise it by less. I did. The landlady wrote on the lease that they won’t raise the rent at all. Um, OK. The lawyer kept a copy of the lease as a model. He said that it was one of the best he’d ever seen. As of mid-February, I will have been in this apartment for three years. It’s time for the next set of checks. My landlady reminds me in a text message. She also lets me know how much I owe on the electricity bill. That’s a little over a hundred dollars for two months. Not bad. One advantage of living in a basement apartment: it doesn’t tend to get too hot or too cold. I’ve put the heat on a half dozen times or so this winter, only for about half an hour each time. On the way home from work, I get money from the ATM to pay the bill. I give the landlady exact change as usual. I write out the checks. I have exactly twelve checks in my checkbook. I’ll have to get another one before this time next year.