Okay, let's see...
It's four frickin' degrees outside. Under our house it's colder... the mice
are wearing moonboots and Red River facemasks. Even the roaches have mittens
and tight little sweaters that say "rockstar," and "10," and other
sassy-cool stuff. Our bathroom has tile floors. This means that when you
step out of the shower, if your foot misses the bathmat by even an inch, you
are instantly stuck to the floor like a giant tongue on a telephone pole,
the cold causing a dull ache in your leg. So today I'm standing there
hopping around on the tile floor while I wait for the water to warm up for a
shower.
And I wait.
And I hop.
And I wait.
Hopping.
Waiting.
Of course I left my clothes -socks included- in my room, the warmest in the
house (a not so sweltering 67 degrees, on account of air vents the size of
747 turbines) and have run to stand in front of the little floor heater in
the bathroom (49 degrees, on account that it is next to the hallway (-13
degrees, on account of some voodoo bad juju and just the sadistic cruelty of
nature... our own little Tibet) which is between the bathroom and my
bedroom). Well, by the time I'm numb up to my ribcage from the creeping cold
of the floor I start to realize that this whole warm water idea is not going
to happen. Just as I am about to lose consciousness and my lips turn blue I
have to streak through Tibet to my room, put on my clothes which are now
about the temperature and texture of Flav-o-Ice Pops and dash to check our
water heater (which is outside in a separate unheated building (8 degrees,
on account of God must think it's funny that our hallway is colder than our
shed)) only to discover that it has become a small, white-trash version of
the fountain at the Bellagio.
Now my feet are wet.
But the icicles are pretty.
Then I have to search for tools to shut off the water in the alley. Once I
find some in the corner of the shed, I grab them and sprint for the alley.
As I run penguinlike, because of the 35 pound crescent wrench in one hand,
it hits me that each chunk of metal I'm grasping is roughly the temperature
of liquid Nitrogen... say, oh, -322 degrees. By the time I've dug through
the garbage in the alley to find the buried rusty, muddy shut-off valve I'm
numb and covered in dirt, cold sweat, mud, rusty water, I think some 1994
Snapple, and a couple of pine needles. I shut off the water to our house
(because the valves to the water heater itself don't work) only to realize
that at the start of all this, my one single desire was to be clean. Now
I've just successfully, victoriously cut off all access to water and I look
and smell like a crocodile wrestler.
My keyboard is going to need to be cleaned.
So how are you?