doorman apparently fired

The reason I was padlocked into my building on Monday, it turns out, is that they were trying to keep the doorman out and hadn’t hired a new one yet. He is suspected of masterminding a recent break-in at my neighbor’s place while she was on vacation, an incident in which considerable cash and gold were lost.

I’m not sorry to see him go.

Many Cairo buildings have veteran doormen who stay on the job for years. My current building seems to get a new one every 6-8 months or so; I’m not sure why.

The last guy was a gem: always smiling, never pestering.

This guy has been a headache, always knocking on the door asking for extra money, showing passive-aggressive anger if I won’t let him carry a tiny grocery bag upstairs for a tip, etc.

He had his good moments during the Revolution, treating a friend of mine well. But he was my third or fourth least favorite doorman during my time in Cairo.

My least favorite was a guy downtown who was later fired for smoking pot on the job. But that’s not why he was my least favorite. One reason is that he’d make incredibly lewd remarks about any female visitors after they’d left my place. Another reason is that he aggressively insisted that I should help him find a second wife (an American) on the internet, and he wanted to come into my apartment as I sat there with him and helped him find this second wife. And by second I mean two at the same time, not that he was divorced. He also demanded beer from me, which my predecessor apparently gave him as a tip on a regular basis. I was glad when he was fired too.