This post originally appeared on December 19th, 2006 at http://weblog.xanga.com/ComRus/557173220/item.html.
I had to call maintenance yet again today. It started a few days ago, when I walked into the bathroom to find a puddle next to the toilet. This couldn’t be, I yelled to the heavens, we just had the toilet fixed. So I flushed the toilet (any good weblog entry contains “so I flushed the toilet,” you know), and nothing came out. I mopped up, in that I grabbed some paper towels (like I’m going to go to the effort to pull out a mop?), picked up the rug near the toilet so as to eliminate a later possible need to wash it, and left it at that. For the day, the floor was dry.
The next day came, and at one point in the afternoon, the floor near the toilet was wet again. So I continued to fiddle with the toilet, and eventually determined that if I leaned on the left side of the tank (or right side, if we’re talking from the toilet’s point of view), Niagara Falls came to my bathroom. This time I mopped up and left a few paper towels near where the falls hit the floor.
Did I call maintenance? Of course not. Sure, the toilet has proven itself to leave small puddles by the toilet when left unattended, but it’s not like it happened all the time. We could live with a few leaks. I mean, the alternative would be to actually call maintenance. That would be awful.
As we all know, I hate doing that: gratuitous link to my post where I discussed that I dislike calling maintenance (which gratuitously links to another post on the same topic. Both posts, incidentally, make up almost exactly what this post is).
The next morning, very early, I went into the bathroom and found Noah constructing something using what he called a cubit-stick, and complaining that the bathroom wasn’t big enough to fit something 300 cubits long. Seeing as how I really don’t know what a cubit was, I accepted his expert opinion. However, I had to draw the line when he wanted me to mail out some sort of cruise invitation to people like Mr. Camel and guest.
I then finished the annoying Ark-based joke, and continued on with the weblog.
So the bathroom was nearly flooded. Luckily, it mostly pooled in the corner by the tub, so that most of the bathroom was spared. I then spent the next 15 minutes cleaning up the mess, and sighing that I actually had to call maintenance.
I finally did so today, after the necessary minor cleaning, and they came and fixed it without too many issues. But that’s not to say I now like Maintenance.
Anyway, after they left I noticed a large metal object next to the toilet. They were in such a hurry to leave and check out of work for the day that they left a screwdriver the size of a katana blade. And by comparing it to a katana blade, I do mean to reference the fact that the screwdriver was very much weapon-like. It felt uncomfortable to even hold such an object, as its heft and length could only be used for evil. As such, I became the screwdriver bearer, and had to bring it back to Nextdor to the Mt. Apartment Office to unmake it (yeah, I have been watching The Lord of the Rings series again. I downloaded Rifftrax for the Fellowship of the Rings and got semi-hooked. I just wish they had a Two Towers Rifftrax, as I missed watching the film without the commentary. And to completely digress, I just started reading The Hobbit again for the first time since Junior High. I never realized just how much it was written for the young. Too bad, it used to be a legend of a book in my mind).
Bringing the screwdriver down to the office, however, posed a few problems. The first of which was that I was headed out to run an errand, and I had to determine whether or not to drive the block to the apartment office. I figured I might as well, but because of my experience in criminal defense, I knew that if I was pulled over, given its immense size, the officer could only interpret the screwdriver as a “burglary tool.” Possession of such an object is a felony (of course, also in my experience, something as dumb as a pair of scissors has been called a burglary tool with enough prosecutor imagination).
I decided to drive it to the office anyway, and luckily wasn’t pulled over. I then had to bring this gigantic weapon-like object into the office. Do I walk in with it, scaring the hell out of the office workers? Do I hide it in my jacket pocket, pull it out, and risk one of them diving to the back to call 911? I decided to hold the “blade” of the screwdriver in my hand, with the handle rather clearly showing. I have to say, it still looked like an instrument of attack.
And given the office-worker’s face, she interpreted it very similarly too. I’m already a pretty large man, but I walked in and made the unfortunate mistake to tell her in a deep booming voice that maintenance was just in our apartment (in a very not a calming way) while walking straight up to her wielding a large heavy-looking object. I raised my hand to give it to her, and I think she might have squeaked.
She was startled, and only after I started to walk out did she say “thank you.” And then, as I was exiting, she confirmed my suspicion about the screwdriver. She looked at the woman who entered behind me (who apparently worked there), lifted the screwdriver to her, and said, “be careful, I’m armed.”
Yup. I’ll probably be brought up on charges tomorrow.
Cheers,
Charlie
Comrus 