Spewage

So, a few minutes ago, while I was eating lunch & writing, the people who live upstairs sent something heinous down the drain of their kitchen sink, which got stuck in the pipes and, since everything’s connected, caused our kitchen sink to fill up with a foreign, fecal backwash of some kind that absolutely reeked. It filled up the sink and spilled onto the floor, so I hustled to get a bucket under there and ended up dumping buckets for twenty minutes or more. And soon as I could, I called the superintendent, who sent a plumber over, and who is, at present, jackhammering away at the pipes with an automatic plunger, an auger, and a few other tools I don’t really understand at all. The guy’s funny as hell. He just looked at our sink and said, “This scene is pretty awesome. In fact, I think it’s totally hot. Scenes like this make me really enjoy my chosen vocation.” He spoke a little like he’d just read a primer on sarcasm. But I was down. When I asked about his rubber gloves, he said, “The same company that makes these also makes latex condoms. This type of rubber is supposed to be totally impermeable. Of course, there’s no way to be sure about that, which is why I have two kids.” I laughed like he was my instant homeslice.

About the time the plumber showed up, though, the lawn maintenance dude arrived outside on his platform mower, cutting ordered zigzags into the clover while the sun bounced off his Oakley Razorblades. All our windows were open and Eleanor was napping, but, naturally, the incessant, deafening roar of the gas engine woke her up. So she stumbled, bleary eyed, into the hallway looking for her Ma while I was conferring with the plumber and also still trying to eat lunch and get some writing done. Chaos. About the same time, I happened to glance out the window and caught sight of my next door neighbor, a fiftysomething White guy who lives in a house that looks like a giant wedge of cheesecake, clad head-to-toe in a beekeeping suit. “Ill be damned, Ella,” I said, scooping her up into my arms, “that guy’s a bee keeper!” With his smoke can piping away, he ambled on over to his bee boxes at the shaded edge of the yard, and soon enough the bees were swarming all over his paws and legs in writhing black clumps. The smoke poured out of the can’s spout until he looked like a fallen cloud with human legs.