| i can hear that someone is home around 730 so i make my way upstairs to find out if they will be home for the duration so the plumber can make his perfunctory examination if and when he should deign to join us. my neighbor answers the door shirtless as per usual. its actually pretty cool today but the humidity is still high so i cant exactly blame him. still, it would not kill him to throw on a wife beater t-shirt as he does later prior to the plumbers arrival.
we spend the next 45 minutes discussing which anime i should watch next after i just blew through attack on titan. the rest of the conversation centered on the price of bulk blu ray discs (he had rigged an internal drive external to his laptop to back up all the anime he downloads) and pricing out cheap small android phones as he was ready to upgrade.
after that 45 minute mark i was starting to get a headache and my annoyance with the plumber was growing exponentially so i broke down and called him. he said hed be over in 10 minutes. 25 minutes later he arrived as i was chopping celery for a tuna salad sandwich. the tension building in my neck quickly abated when i heard the bell ring or maybe it was the aspirin kicking in.
as i suspected, no plastic wrap for the ceiling. i was beyond niceties so i pointed it out immediately in the least snide manner i was capable of and he had some sheepish (not quite the right descriptor) reply. to his credit upon seeing the hole and uttering "not good" a number of times, he plotted out how best to temporarily cover it. it sounded like plywood would be involved as he thought the plastic would rupture if more of the rock and dirt insulation fell. seemed like an unlikely eventuality but i wasnt in the mood to argue for a lesser option.
did i mention he said i had interrupted his dinner? i told him i probably interrupted his lunch, too, the implication being that ive been waiting around all day so i wasnt moved by his great sacrifice of foregoing dessert.
upstairs we go. he pretty quickly decides it is the sealant without making the effort of watching as we offer to repeat our experiment from the weekend. he is probably right. we go back and forth with my neighbor about the possibility that he is going to replace the floor tile and the toilet in the near future but as my neighbor was already pushing back the date until mid july when he could get time off to oversee the proceedings (i offered but he doesnt trust anyone else to do it), i was relieved to hear that everyone was on board for a temporary seal even if it was likely (or not, who knows) that it would be removed a month later. at least with a seal we could convince my landlord to proceed with the ceiling repairs.
so at about this time my neighbors wife pokes her head through the apartment door. she couldnt actually get in because we were blocking the entranceway which was between the front door and the bathroom. disinterested as she was her husband gave her an update on the proceedings. upon hearing it was likely the sealant without guilt or guile she amusedly recounted the time a couple of years ago that she tore out the old, nasty smelling sealant from around the toilet, and she reminded me that i was there to watch her do it! then she shifted the blame to her husband whose responsibility she claimed it was to reseal it or get some else to do it.
so the original sin has been laid bare, although im not wholly convinced that that seal is the entirety of the problem as there are other cracks in the vicinity that are at least as likely to be compromised. but as mysteries go it could not have wrapped up more neatly. even jessica fletcher might think it was too easily resolved.
but as long as i have the famed detective here, maybe she could solve another mystery, that being, where the hell is the plumber off to? its been another hour since he shuffled off for supplies.
oh wait...... bzzzzzzzz.
ask not for whom the bell tolls.
|
we spend the next 45 minutes discussing which anime i should watch next after i just blew through attack on titan. the rest of the conversation centered on the price of bulk blu ray discs (he had rigged an internal drive external to his laptop to back up all the anime he downloads) and pricing out cheap small android phones as he was ready to upgrade.
after that 45 minute mark i was starting to get a headache and my annoyance with the plumber was growing exponentially so i broke down and called him. he said hed be over in 10 minutes. 25 minutes later he arrived as i was chopping celery for a tuna salad sandwich. the tension building in my neck quickly abated when i heard the bell ring or maybe it was the aspirin kicking in.
as i suspected, no plastic wrap for the ceiling. i was beyond niceties so i pointed it out immediately in the least snide manner i was capable of and he had some sheepish (not quite the right descriptor) reply. to his credit upon seeing the hole and uttering "not good" a number of times, he plotted out how best to temporarily cover it. it sounded like plywood would be involved as he thought the plastic would rupture if more of the rock and dirt insulation fell. seemed like an unlikely eventuality but i wasnt in the mood to argue for a lesser option.
did i mention he said i had interrupted his dinner? i told him i probably interrupted his lunch, too, the implication being that ive been waiting around all day so i wasnt moved by his great sacrifice of foregoing dessert.
upstairs we go. he pretty quickly decides it is the sealant without making the effort of watching as we offer to repeat our experiment from the weekend. he is probably right. we go back and forth with my neighbor about the possibility that he is going to replace the floor tile and the toilet in the near future but as my neighbor was already pushing back the date until mid july when he could get time off to oversee the proceedings (i offered but he doesnt trust anyone else to do it), i was relieved to hear that everyone was on board for a temporary seal even if it was likely (or not, who knows) that it would be removed a month later. at least with a seal we could convince my landlord to proceed with the ceiling repairs.
so at about this time my neighbors wife pokes her head through the apartment door. she couldnt actually get in because we were blocking the entranceway which was between the front door and the bathroom. disinterested as she was her husband gave her an update on the proceedings. upon hearing it was likely the sealant without guilt or guile she amusedly recounted the time a couple of years ago that she tore out the old, nasty smelling sealant from around the toilet, and she reminded me that i was there to watch her do it! then she shifted the blame to her husband whose responsibility she claimed it was to reseal it or get some else to do it.
so the original sin has been laid bare, although im not wholly convinced that that seal is the entirety of the problem as there are other cracks in the vicinity that are at least as likely to be compromised. but as mysteries go it could not have wrapped up more neatly. even jessica fletcher might think it was too easily resolved.
but as long as i have the famed detective here, maybe she could solve another mystery, that being, where the hell is the plumber off to? its been another hour since he shuffled off for supplies.
oh wait...... bzzzzzzzz.
ask not for whom the bell tolls.
- dave 6-15-2015 10:27 pm