Monday, November 14, 2005

Lots of hot air, but still no hot water

Twenty-five days. This is how long my flat has been without hot water. I’m not a person easily moved to profanity, but this is fucking ridiculous.

In summary (because despite what you might believe, I do have better things to do with my time than post whiney entries), the week before break, my hot water stopped working. No big problem. I was at Gaines’ the weekend, then in Transylvania. I kinda hoped it might fix itself. I should be so lucky.

I came back from break. Laura and I put up with no hot water while we were here. I took a long, hot shower at her place, and came home to my now-routine of icy, 60-second showers.

On the first Monday back at school, I told Kati, who sent Páli, the school’s handyman, to take a look. He decided that an actual gas mechanic should look at it, and we scheduled him for Thursday. But whatever fiddling Páli had done had temporarily fixed the problem, lulling me into believing the problem was gone and, stupidly, canceling the appointment. Great, I got in one hot shower and one load of dishes before the water went out again.

Although I gripe a lot here in the anonymity of cyberspace, in real life I hate being a complainer. It’s one of the worst things to label a person. So 4 of the hot-water-less days are directly my fault: I waited until today to pester Kati again. She promised to send Páli and the gas man again. They came. They fiddled. They tested the water. They gave me a Look, gave each other a Look, and pronounced everything “minden rendben.” (Everything in order.) They left. I tried the water in the kitchen: lukewarm, then just cold. In the bathroom: lukewarm, then cold. Why, oh why, didn’t I think to try the water in the kitchen before they left?

So I’m back to square one, no hot water. I can manage a lukewarm shower if I keep it under 30 seconds. Lucky me. Twenty-five days and counting. At this point, to end on a hopeful note, I’d like to open the comments for a poll: How Many Days Will Emily Survive Without Hot Water? My own estimate is 32.

Actually, not true, I have something better to end with. My new logo, stolen from an under-the-breath comment by one of my “good class” eighth-graders:

2 comments:

Laura said...

I would like to leave an educated guess of 42 days with luke warm water. And as always I will refrain from throwing paper rocks!!

jeremy said...

what about their bitch-ass cell phones? can i still throw those out the window? jj