Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Only two or three things need to break simultaneously, dear reader, and modern life goes straight to hell. Taken individually, each item seems trivial, almost brainteaser-like in its distraction, yet it’s a completely different story when they intersect. Borked Internet? Not a problem. Read a few magazines, sing to yourself, walk into a wall or two, and time passes quickly. Can’t reach a person? Delete her from your cellphone. Clogged sink? Call up maintenance and pretend they’ll respond. Borked Internet and unresponsiveness with a side of plumbing problem? If you can’t find me in the morning, I’ll probably be the object rotting in the nearest gutter.

It’s usually at this point that a thoughtful person filled with vile equanimity will look at the scene, cross the ol’ arms, and demand a quick cut to a depressing portrait of starving children and beached whales. In the end, no, I really can’t complain, but I do it anyway because it’s therapeutic, like a shiny red button made of healing that begs to be pressed and licked.

There’s a great line and it goes, “You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you can bear.” If that is indeed the case, then having fate deal you a crappy modem and a clogged sink is pretty pathetic. It’s time to complain, cope, and up the stakes. And OH GOD IT’S ALSO TIME TO STOP THE ARMCHAIR PHILOSOPHY.

The Internet fixed itself, in case you couldn’t tell, and our connection has become even more reliable because the man from Comcast said so. My kitchen sink, however, still enjoys clinging to dirty water as if it were a valuable collection of coins or something. Five words for your pleasure: stagnant body of yellow water. Our relationship is strained, so to speak, and rather vulgar dialog has been exchanged.

“Right now, Sink?” I said bluntly, looking it straight in the drain. “You’re like a fourth tit, completely vestigial yet absolutely fucking necessary.”

“Fourth tit?” it burbled unrepentantly. “Doesn’t that presuppose you have three?”

“I presuppose I have five.”

“Oh, snap!”

Tomorrow we will discuss a more interesting topic, such as verbal tics. It looks like the standing water drained in the last half hour, which means I’m tasked with the unpleasant objective of removing what appears to be vomit and, worse, minestrone.