At 9am this morning, the maintenance crew shut off the water in my building only to clean and disinfect the tanks. I sit here waiting for life to run back through the pipes. In the mean time, I've been trying to entertain myself without having to resort to drinking my daily two liters of water or without going outside for an adventurous bike ride through the west side bike path OR without practicing my tennis. Still, it is in this peculiar - yet not unreal - situation where I find myself having a really relaxing time.
After I forced my lazy body up off the bed, I dragged my feet to the kitchen and helped myself to a bowl of honey nut cheerios. At the table I sat dazed, reimagining last night's dreams, while my brother and mother tumbled around groggily and edgy. A typical weekday morning at the house. Kohei was racing around like a lost mouse looking for his papers and folders while Ma was getting dressed, helping Kohei find his school work, and sneaking sips of coffee all while curling her hair. Straight up chaos.
Might I add, most of us could never be better off without our mums. Where would we be without them, eh?
Anyway, a little after 8:30am I was finally alone in the apartment. The noise had subsided and the chaos stormed out leaving a trail of dust and rubble behind. The shower head bursted strong streams of hot water making the bathroom fill up with vapor and humidity. Boy did it all feel good. Nothing better than feeling bodily cleansed. Your head feels lighter, your skin smoother, and your spirit lifted. The funny thing about after getting out of the shower was hearing the pipes of nearby neighbors in use as well. If you listen carefully, you can hear the pipes of flushing toilets and the sounds of running faucets. It was somewhat musical in its own strange pipe-way.
I sat on my bed with the tube turned on to the weather channel, all dressed in the simple garb of denims and a tee, and was still able to hear the pipes in use. I looked to the clock and to my realization, it was minutes away from 9. Several stories down, perhaps even below street level, was a team of maintenance members and tank operators standing idle by the tanks while the point man held his stop watch in one hand while the other hand held onto a humongous lever to shut down the whole shebang. I can imagine them now - disgruntled, single, 30-somethings, standing in a moldy creepy cellar in their wrinkled uniform pants and paint-stained uniform polo shirts half-way tucked into their pants. It's as if they've been waiting for this moment for months to get back at the tenants. Evil men, they are down there. How dare they take our water away from us.
From my room, the pipes got a little quiet. Because the walls are so thin, I can sometimes hear my next door neighbor sneeze or even conversing over the phone. Today, I heard her shower die. Total flatlined. I couldn't help but think 'the end is near.' Feeling a little anxious and in hopes to get my day going, I emptied my bin into a garbage bag and walked out into the hallway. It was there that I experienced something very spectacular. Sounds that were almost orchestrated in a way. At nine o'clock on the dot I stood outside my apartment amazed at the aquatic orchestration of running water from the apartments around me.
My Hungarian neighbor, Stephan, at apartment J, was running water in his kitchen, for I heard dishes clattering in the sink over the loud daily shouting between him and his wife and their teenaged daughter. Perpendicular to my apartment, down the hall, was another neighbor who was possibly taking a shower with his door open. As I walked further along the corridor towards the incinerator room with the garbage chute, I hear a shower head on full blast from the apartment in the center of the hallway. She was even singing along of some sort of east Indian tune playing from her stereo.
Water, water, water! It was being used everywhere and all simultaneously! It was the tenants last hoorah before letting the Evil Maintenance Men take control of our source of hydration. Our last stand. I don't think I will ever forget the magic of the apartments running water all at once. Something like this just doesn't happen all the time.
I walk back into my apartment, wishing to quickly cleanse my hands before time had run up. I twist the knobs open and water comes blasting through the faucet. I get my hands wet by a quick rinse and grab for the bar of soap. I comfortably took my time rubbing my hands over the soap as the foam built up covering my paws entirely. I drop the soap into the sink and shove my hands under the water. Before I was able to wash all the soap, the faucet goes dead. Total flatlined. I twist the knobs around trying to find an answer. Nothing. The time has come; the end is here. The Evil Maintenance Men were probably laughing maniacally down in the cellar, raising their arms in victory while chanting war cries, applauding themselves and patting each other on the back and nodding off in satisfaction as if they're righteous. Oh, they'll get theirs someday.
I stand in the bathroom and in less than a couple of hours, the water will return. I flush the toilet after a long ensued pee session. The water twirls down the porcelain easily but not as noisily as always. The pump can't get any more water into the tank, obviously. Thanks to the E.M.M. But my optimism takes a hold of me. I approach the sink and look at the faucet. I shake my head in disagreement and twist a knob on the sink. Nothing.
Just a couple of hours more (>_<)
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