Thursday, November 16, 2006

Last night I was in bed using my laptop (the neighbour whose wireless I was stealing apparently found out about it and blocked me, so I had to revert to the other one with a weaker connection that I could only detect from my bed, which is fine except...) when the bedside light flickered a few times, then went off. I tried switching it on and off again, pulling the plug out and then plugging it back in, as if it were a Windows operating system that just needed a ctrl+alt+delete, but of course it refused to be resuscitated. 5 minutes later, the ceiling light above the entranceway followed suit. Same pattern of death, flickering a few times before going off.

Now those who know me personally know that I read signs into everything. Could this be a premonition of things to come? Could my apartment be a metaphor for my life? Messy, disorganised, empty... and now, falling apart little by little? -Ok, hold your horses my friends, this here is sarcasm mixed with a little hyperbole; it is a literary device, not a symptom of my manic depression.

Speaking of apartments, Shizuka's (this girl who lives just down the street) ceiling started leaking really badly on Saturday, and she asked me to go over to help her speak to her superintendent, and also for moral support. The guy was so obnoxious! He stumbled into the apartment half drunk, looked at the leak, pulled out the slab of paint that was peeling off the ceiling, declared it a "roof problem", took 2 pieces of tissue, and placed them on the kitchen counter over which the water was dripping. Shizuka and I turned to look at each other. 3 seconds of silence passed. The following exchange ensued.

Me: Um, are you going to fix it?
Him: Maybe.
Me: Uh, you have to fix it, or she won't be able to do anything in this apartment.
Him: Yes, I agree. It's a roof, it should be covered. It shouldn't leak. I know.
Me: Yes, so are you going to fix it?
Him: What do you want me to do? Did you expect me to come in with a hacksaw and hack the roof down?
Me: No, but there has to be a way to fix it!
Him: Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. I will go up and find out.
Me: OK. How long do you think it will take?
Him: How long do you take to solve a problem?
Me: What? Uh, well, it DEPENDS on the problem.
Him: Yes. Same for me.
Me: Well, you KNOW this is a ROOF problem. So how long does it usually take for you to fix a ROOF problem?

-- tee @ 12:42 am |