passion...schmassion

Day 10009: The building likes me...

Yesterday I walked into my office only to find myself heel deep in smelly, wet, squishy carpet that oozed liquid with every thought of movement. The papers I had left scattered all over my desk were wrinkled and crunchy. The Micky-D coupons that everyone insists on keeping in my office (though I've never used them) were runny and limp. Water dripped from the light fixtures. My chair and the sweater that I had hung off the back of the chair was soaked beyond belief. It looked like someone had peed on my chair. I swear it wasn't me.

The morning was spent in typical non-productiveness trying to soak up the wetness with no-name paper towel, wishing for a roll of Bounty (Bounty is the better picker upper, in case you were wondering), and praying with every cell in my being that it was my imagination that was running over and that there was no bathroom located right above my office on the floor above. Common sense said that no, all the washrooms are located in the middle near the elevator banks... just like on the 3rd and the 5th floors. But no, hopes were dashed to the floor by a visiting gawker who simply said, "You never know with those weird-ass marketing people upstairs... could be someone's executive washroom..." I would have heard the flush at least once in the past year, wouldn't I?

The rest of the day, I would sniff suspiciously at my belongings imagining the burn-fest that would have to be performed if indeed the leak turned out to be from a washroom - even from the clean-water-in pipe. I hoped, and hoped, and hoped that it was condensation from the air conditioning system. We've been having problems with the air regulation system. New pipes were installed just last week... so the possibility existed.

"I feel like I've been peed on," I emailed Triscuit in desparation. He would be able to do what? I had no clue, but I wanted to share my misery, and all KC would do was tease me about peeing my pants and *ahem* somehow peeing on the ceiling. Give me a break... I'm a girl... maybe YOU peed on the ceiling... and my chair... and ew, ew, ew... I don't want to go there...

"The building likes you," was all Triscuit would respond - referring of course to the running joke that he, Mr. BMW, and I have about peeing on the people you like. (Derived from a "we're semi-drunken and extremely bored while waiting for party to get going" conversation about the Toot who still insists on "happy peeing" on everyone she sees... boo). No sympathy there. What the heck was I expecting? Flowers? Yeah, right. A roll of Bounty, maybe.

So I squished my way through the day, dodging the maintenance person who spent all of sixty-one seconds on a ladder peering into the hazy darkness up above. "I'll come back tomorrow when it dries," he says. No other explanation given.

My mind was screaming "WHAT THE HECK IS THIS STUFF??? TELL MEEEEEE!!!!" But I didn't ask, because I really didn't want to know. Droplets of water still occassionally showered down on my already crinkly client docs. And I pushed it to the back of my mind, telling myself over and over again not to look at the brown sludgy stain on the ceiling tiles. "Control gag reflex," I told myself.

Today, the maintenance guy has come and gone. He climbed up his funky orange featherlite step ladder, peered into the hazy darkness for all of ten seconds, pulled a can of white spraypaint out of his pocket, held the nozzle down for a couple of quick half second bursts, and spraypainted over the brown, sludgy, water stain. My nose now hurts from the smell of the fumes. And as he was packing up and proudly telling me that he was done, my curiousity got the best of me...

"So... what was the problem?" I inquired oh-so-sweetly, fluttering my eyelashes a bit... I had dust in my eye from him moving the ceiling tiles.

He answered "Leak..." in his heavy Fillipino accent and hemmed and hawed for a bit telling me that he fixed the problem upstairs and don't worry my pretty little head about it.

I couldn't take the suspense anymore and jumped to the point. "Washroom?" My mind was screaming "RUN", my mouth was feeling a little dry.

"Nah. Kitchen sink."

"Oh."

I still feel like I've been peed on...