The Money Pit

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon.

I gave PP a call. We talked about Seattle and Taipei, about heading back to North America, about the where and when and why and how. Then Bill called, asking me to meet him for lunch in this restaurant 10 minutes away from our place. I finished the conversation with sleepy PP, took a quick rinse, and headed out the door.

It had just started to drizzle when I walked out the door. By the time I met up with Bill at the restaurant, however, it was pouring down so hard it made using the umbrella a laughable behaviour. In the restaurant, Bill and I talked about our plans: moving out of the apartment, going back to North America, and the where and when and why and how.

Little did we know, something completely unpredictable was happening inside our apartment.

If I remember correctly, I was talking about the changing shape of my body when I unlocked the door and stepped into the pool of water that had gathered in the Situation Room. The entire room was flooded like the nightmare of a person with a fear of drowning! Considering the circumstance, Bill and I were remarkably calm and we talked to one another in a disturbingly civilized manner. We tried asking Nuage, the only possible eye witness, about what happened, but he offered no help ‘cause he had just woken up when he heard us coming in. We asked the landlady’s husband to drag his pickled butt over, but regretted doing so right away ‘cause he was, as usual, too drunk to be of any help. In fact, when he saw the amount of water in our apartment, he stood by the threshold and repeated as if possessed by Rain Man: “Wah~ That’s A LOT of water! How did this happen?” Fortunately for us, the landlady’s son, whom we met today for the very first time, also came over to assess the situation. While the landlady was trying to pin it on us and suggesting the possibility of leaving the faucet on, the son yelled into the phone to silence his controlling mother. When his dad was pathetically fiddling with a mop that he obviously had no clue how to operate, the son stared on in disbelieve and quietly asked, “How much have you drunk today?”

With their help, we cleaned up the apartment. We’re moving out of this place for sure, and we’ve got an appointment set up to view an apartment on Monday.

This was a lazy Saturday afternoon turned crazy.