Our Kind Landlord

Two friends and I moved into a house offcampus when I was a junior at Iowa State Uni-versity.

We were all a bit afraid of our landlord，who was a gruff middle aged man.

He gave us a lecture about paying the renton time and maintaining the house and appli-ances. We weren’t really supposed to， but dur-ing the fall semester， my housemates and Ithrew a party.

We sent invitations to many friends andtold everyone that we knew to come to ourhouse on Friday night. We drew a large crowdand everyone had a great time. The last guests left in the wee hours of the morning.

Exhausted， we decided to sleep in andclean the house and yard the next morning.

Well， you guessed it！We were awakened about 7：00 a.m. by ourlandlord， who was knocking on the door. Sheep-ishly， we let him in， expecting to incur hiswrath. Instead， he picked up a party invitationthat had been laying on the sidewalk and asked，“Why didn’t you girls invite me？”

He came into the house， made a minor re-pair， and spent a few minutes helping us pickup trash from the yard. We weren’t quite surewhat to make of our unexpected luck， but wewere thrilled that our landlord had been so un-derstanding.

A few months later， I made a mathematicalerror while balancing my checkbook and mybank soon notified me that I had bounced acheck. I was mortified when I discovered that itwas my rent check and that I had to notify mylandlord.

I figured that he viewed my housematesand I as irresponsible after the party incidentand this would prove him right. I was certainthat he would evict me. Somehow， I musteredthe courage to call him and explained what hadhappened.He said，“I have a daughter aboutyour age， and the same thing happened to heronce. Would you like to wait until next monthand send a double payment then？”I’ve neverforgotten our landlord’s kindness and under-standing.

He also taught me an important lessonabout not judging a book by its cover. I’mproud to say that I have not bounced a checksince （though I have thrown a few more parties）！

在愛荷華州大學(xué)讀大三時，我和兩個朋友從宿舍搬出來，租了一間房子。（剩余562字）