Blogatron

It's not the leak that gets you, it's the monsters.

There is a hole in my bathroom ceiling. It is rectangular. It is caused by the absence of a ceiling tile. The ceiling tile was disintegrated by water; the decay was hastened with the help of The World's Grumpiest Maintenance Guy, who poked his fingers into it and broke it into little bits so that he could see where the water was coming from (and incidentally caused a deluge of rusty liquid to pour copiously all over the bathroom).

TWGMG arrived at our home on Wednesday evening, after Josh discovered water dripping onto the litter box and splashing the toilet and other essentials. TWGMG was displeased. He asked us rapid-fire questions which had little do with leaks, such as "Who owns this apartment?" He rolled his eyes when we did not know the answers. He seemed to suspect that we might have caused the leak on purpose, just to make his life hard. We explained that this was not the case. He wondered if we had asked our upstairs neighbors about the leak. We responded that as far as we knew, our neighbors are not plumbers. TWGMG then removed our ceiling tile, peered into the hole, barked something into a cell phone, made snarling noises which resolved into something about "need to talk to the oil people," and left. "Thank you!" we said. We were relieved to see, at least, that our leak was not a frivolous leak. I mean, when you need to call in the oil people, your leak is For Real. It is worth TWGMG's time.

Things then became eerily quiet, the better to hear drip-drip-drip. Josh went to class. Josh came back. Drip-drip-drip became drip...pause...drip...pause...drip, and eventually stopped. Huzzah!

The phone rang. On the other end was The Oil Guy Who Maybe Knocked Back a Couple Or Six, Or Has Something Else Going On Which Causes the Awkward Pauses Which Punctuate His Speech. TOG... asked if we were still leaking. I assured him that no, it had stopped. He was triumphant. "...I fixed it!" he said. I was glad for him.

So. Restorations occurred. The litter box was reinstated, the cat assured that all was well. Buckets were emptied. Peace reigned once again.

Except, there is a hole in the ceiling. The hole destroys the illusion that we are safely enclosed. Every time I pee or brush my teeth, I am reminded of the dank, dark, pipe-laced space above my head, just an inch of pourous sound insulation away. There could be anything up there. It looks like a really good place for, well, all sorts of nasty things. And now they have a portal. Great.

And then there's the other thing.

In the last week or so, there has been critter activity in the ceiling. That alone is a bit squinky. I'm not particularly freaked out by mice, but I defy you to not get a little alarmed when you hear skitter-skitter-SKRITCH-wokka-wokka-wokka-THUMP going on just above your head. And, sure, it's probably not giant centipedes, but I would like to remind you all that "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." For you laypersons out there, that means that there could totally be giant centipedes. Giant centipedes which now have a rectangular, leaky portal.

Because, the leak? Came back in the night, soaked the floor, and left a squishy damp bathmat waiting for my feet this morning. The cat, whose litter box has been displaced twice in three days, is on full-out bushy-tailed crazy-eyed red alert.

Ugh. I don't know how we're going to explain this to TWGMG.

Posted by hilatron at December 13, 2002 06:26 PM