Need Gills to Cook
On a scale of 1 to 10 of the magnitude of shit that can happen to you on the average day, where 1 is missing the train in the morning and 10 is getting kidnapped and beheaded by insurgents moments after finding that your girl is sleeping with your best friend, well, water pouring from your ceiling probably ranks around a 1-point-2. But damn, it’s irritating as hell. Last night I stood underneath the corner of my kitchen ceiling by the fridge, holding a trashcan newly conscripted into a bailing pail, as muddy bio-toxin water poured at a half-gallon a minute from a widening crack above.
My domicile was doing its best imitation of New Orleans’ 9th Ward thanks to my upstairs neighbor, an elderly woman of questionable mental facilities who decided to leave her bathtub taps on full blast. As I shoved the trashcan/bucket into position, I could hear a dim pounding as my landlord forced his way into her apartment.
This is the second water incident in as many days. Saturday night, the water heater in another apartment above mine decided to give it up, sending a steady trickle of water into my place. Both times I just started laughing. It seemed the best option. As some philosopher once said, the world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
People ask me how my weekend went and I always say, “Good,” and leave it at that.
Renting in this Brave New World of skyrocketing housing prices is always an adventure, just like Russian roulette. Depending on where you choose to live, you may find yourself freezing, falling through busted floorboards, dealing with armor-plated cave grasshoppers, or doing a Chow Yun-Fat roll through your bedroom door at 2am when your drunk/psycho roommate decides to open fire with the Nerf cannon.
This place I live now, though, is good, except for those two months in winter where the old furnace has a little trouble keeping up with the cold. The water was more of a reminder of the 2-bedroom I lived in back in college, which had all of the aforementioned issues, plus the occasional police action in the alley out back.
My domicile was doing its best imitation of New Orleans’ 9th Ward thanks to my upstairs neighbor, an elderly woman of questionable mental facilities who decided to leave her bathtub taps on full blast. As I shoved the trashcan/bucket into position, I could hear a dim pounding as my landlord forced his way into her apartment.
This is the second water incident in as many days. Saturday night, the water heater in another apartment above mine decided to give it up, sending a steady trickle of water into my place. Both times I just started laughing. It seemed the best option. As some philosopher once said, the world is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel.
People ask me how my weekend went and I always say, “Good,” and leave it at that.
Renting in this Brave New World of skyrocketing housing prices is always an adventure, just like Russian roulette. Depending on where you choose to live, you may find yourself freezing, falling through busted floorboards, dealing with armor-plated cave grasshoppers, or doing a Chow Yun-Fat roll through your bedroom door at 2am when your drunk/psycho roommate decides to open fire with the Nerf cannon.
This place I live now, though, is good, except for those two months in winter where the old furnace has a little trouble keeping up with the cold. The water was more of a reminder of the 2-bedroom I lived in back in college, which had all of the aforementioned issues, plus the occasional police action in the alley out back.
posted by NiK @ 6:24 PM
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