Trapped!

(originally from June 2008)

I had a blog I was working on -aka this is not it – but this morning was too weird not to share! I call it morning because it was my morning, but it would be afternoon for the rest of you.

As I have mentioned before my stove burner doesn’t work and hasn’t for some time. The landlords finally decided to do something about it now that our rent has gone up 45$. So, they leave a note on Tuesday saying the “stove repair guy” will be here Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday afternoon. I’ve been going to bed at noon or one pm and getting up at nine pm, so this is a definite time conflict. But it needs fixed.

Luckily, the place is still clean from the air-conditioner-cleaning-emergency-clean, so all I have to do is just pick up the odds and ends and wait. So, Tuesday passes and nothing. Wednesday I get up early, spend the day drawing and still, nothing. I’m starting to think there is no stove repair guys and the landlords just imagined it. After all, I’ve never heard of stove repair guys.

Today (Thursday), I get up and kind of wait around just in case, but by 4:30 there’s been no call from the landlords saying they were coming, so I decide it was imaginary and I go to take a shower…

There is just hubby and me in this place and our blinds in the bedroom live in a permanently closed state, so I don’t close the bathroom door to take a shower – I’m home alone, after all.  Now, I’m in the shower, just putting in the conditioner, when someone bangs on the door. I freeze, and the knocking repeats. I panic and start wondering if I beat on the wall if my brother might hear it and come over to see what I want, thereby dealing with whoever is at my door. But, if I do that whoever is there will hear me…

Thy knock again. I decide they aren’t going away and I scream loudly, “Just a minute!” and start hysterically trying to get the conditioner out of my hair. However, considering the distance from the tub to the front door and the water running they don’t hear me and all of a sudden I hear the landlord’s voice, “Are you home?”

I shriek again, “Just a minute!” but it’s too late.

“We’re here to fix the stove!” she announces loudly, and when I dare to peak between the shower curtain and the wall (a straight shot to the kitchen/bedroom doorway) I can see their shadows RIGHT THERE!

 

Sounds of someone fixing a stove drift to me and I think, “Aha! I’ll just get dressed in the shower!” only when I dare to slink out a wet arm, I find that my clothes aren’t there. A quick rethink reveals that they’re in the bedroom, laying on the foot of the bed. I’m trapped.

Whether because the guy is an imaginary stove repairman or because he imagines that the showering chick in the other room is actually attractive, it took him 45 minutes to fix that stove burner. 45 MINUTES. Meanwhile, I’m trapped behind nothing but a pair of shower curtains, with a cat who is howling because she can’t figure out what I’m doing, and a landlord maybe ten feet away in the bedroom/kitchen doorway who occasionally makes some comment that I have to answer – just so we can all remember that I’m there!

That was quite possibly some of the longest 45 minutes I’ve ever lived through. I thought several times about turning the water back on and finishing my shower, but it seemed too weird. Finally, he finishes the job and the landlord makes little jokes about how it’s all fixed so I’ll have to cook hubby dinner and all I can think is “for the love of god – GO AWAY!”

After that they left and I went on with my day. I only wish  could say that it was worth it, but alas the burner barely lasted a week. Needless to say, I haven’t bothered reporting it. How many burners do  need, anyway?

And if that’s not weird enough for you, take a look at this college advertisement I ran into

I think Bounty Hunter Santa is on something….

song playing at the moment – In Joy and Sorrow – HIM