A window into my weekend

This afternoon my Alien landlady pointed out that our storm windows are not down. Any of them. So that meant two things: 1. That I had to feel like a complete moron, and 2. That I had to fight with every crappy window in the house in order to fix the problem. Our windows are my nemesis. Our place is very charming, but it's old. And where it shows its age is in the windows. They're made out of heavy cracked wood, and they're not afraid to give you a splinter the size of a matchstick for your trouble. None of the screens pull down or go back up easily, and some of the windows won't even open very far at all. Others of them get stuck open, so I have to grab on to the rim and hang from it, hoping that my entire body weight, suspended, will be enough to get the job done. Sometimes, believe it or not, it isn't. What kind of freak window can resist an adult person hanging off of it??? And I do mean literally hanging off of it, reminiscent of the elementary school Fitness Challenge arm hang. It's like they're superwindows.

My roommate came home as I was taking a screw driver to one of the safety latches the Alien had installed on the windows last summer. "What the hell are you doing?" she asked.

"Insulating our home. If you were wondering where all our money has been going this winter, the answer is literally out the windows." She looked at me blankly. "We forgot to put the storm windows down." No sign of comprehension. "The cold air is coming in through the windows."

J looked mildly interested but generally unconcerned. "Huh. I don't know anything about stuff like that - I don't do storm windows or whatever they are."

Now, I'm pretty sure the rules clearly stipulate that there can only be one princess per household. I've had that title cinched for years. Like, 30 of them. How did I get nominated as the default handywoman?

"You shouldn't hang off the windows like that, I think you could probably get hurt," J observed as she plunked down on the couch.

Important note to self: If you kill her, you'll get stuck with her share of the rent.