When I\’m being wry, everyone thinks I\’m being serious. But it\’s my mocking, deadpan, self-deprecating humor that makes life not just bearable, but amusing to me.
It\’s my spring break, yeah? I\’ve got a novovirus. I\’m puking and shitting my guts out. But that started yesterday. In the wee hours of the morning on Monday, my hot water heater broke. Just leaked on out through the utility room. But I don\’t live on that floor, yeah? So I didn\’t notice it was leaking, and when I had no hot water, my first thought was that somewhere in the neighborhood the gas company was working on the gas lines (it\’s been a hard winter, so they\’ve been doing that a lot) and shut off the gas to the \’hood. But one of my neighbors noticed that one of the heaters was leaking and sent an e-mail to the other OWNERS (not me) saying one was leaking and would need to be replaced. Didn\’t bother to e-mail me. Didn\’t let me know. The owners were just concerned that they might have to pay for a new heater because my heater is in the common room with theirs, even though my heater is still owned by the management company.
By the time I noticed my heater was leaking, it was Monday afternoon. I had to scramble to get the water turned off, because the flow was getting hard. But see, I\’m gimpy, and I\’m on the phone to a guy at management who doesn\’t know I\’m gimpy, and I\’m telling him \”I can\’t turn the knob on the heater, it\’s too stiff,\” and he\’s getting frustrated at me because I guess I seemed incompetent. Finally, he had me shut off the water to my unit. All the water. So Monday until seven in the evening, I had no water. At that point, management sent someone over to sort things out, and I got the use of cold water. But for some reason, management couldn\’t find a plumber who could come out and take care of my heater that night.
Plumbers came yesterday, at 8:30am, an hour late. By the time they were done, the tank had filled and the water warmed, it was after noon. By that point, the novovirus had already hit me.
This week, I\’m supposed to be cleaning and packing, because my apartment goes on the condo sale market this week. There\’s a painting crew coming out on Friday to redo the bathroom, and after that, I have to start letting potential buyers and their agents in to view. I\’m also supposed to be doing training at school with Disability Support Services on their assistive technology. Seeing new doctors. Looking for a new place to live. And doing my anthropology participant observation project. But I\’m kind of busy, puking and shitting.
I have half a mind to puke on the first realtor who comes in here. I have another half to be entirely uncooperative, change the locks and declare squatter\’s rights. (Legally, I can do that in this county because my landlord hasn\’t given me written notice saying I have to leave.) Actually, those two halves may be the same half. And I think the other half might be brain dead, or at least without morals.
However, it\’s a beautiful day outside. I feel like not cleaning, taking a puke bag out on the lawn with me, and lying in the sun for a while.
