A Tiring Week

I was having this dream where I was in a creaky, vibrating room with a lot of chihuahuas, and I really wanted to go home. I kept getting up, opening the door, and leaving, but instead of going home, I got lost in the streets. I wandered around till the city became boring. Then, finding myself at last in front of my building, I went in. Except when I got into the elevator, it wasn't the elevator--it was the creaky chihuahua room. So I went out again, and in again, and out, and in, and out, and in, and then I opened my eyes. I looked around for a moment, blinking away my befuddlement. My decaf mocha with extra milk and whipped cream was still in front of me, so I finished that up, folded my newspaper, and went home. I couldn't have dozed for long--my coffee was still hot, and my hands were still holding up my Globe and Mail.

That was this morning--I'd gone to Starbucks for a coffee and biscuit in celebration of having knocked another $200 off my Visa bill. (Grand total owed: $4,650. Not bad.) There are three Starbucks shops within a three-block radius now, since they've put in the one across the street. There are also at least two Blenzes in the downtown area, and a hundred similar coffeeterias. They all look the same. It must've been that sameness that put me to sleep, in combination with a particularly soporific book review in the Globe. Then again, maybe I was simply feeling the cumulative effects of a very exciting week.

THE LANDLORD

It was the landlord who started it all. He was meant to be coming last Tuesday, to inspect my flat, so I spent the whole weekend tearing the place apart. I even scrubbed the green stuff out of the bathtub. The copper, you know. It comes in with the water, and stains everything green. I had to spend fifteen dollars on special foamy stuff to get it out. It wouldn't respond to Lysol and Brillo pads. A tiny spot of mildew had also formed on the ceiling, and when I started scrubbing at it, it turned out to be a dead insect, which left a tobacco-brown smear on my white ceiling. When I scrubbed the smudge, the paint came away, and I had to go downstairs and get the spare paint I bought after I made a hole in the wall. While I was touching up the insect spot, I noticed a lot of other uneven places on the ceiling, so I touched those up too. The next time I took a shower, every place I had painted went all crackly and horrible. To add insult to injury, the brush I used for the touchups, a rather pricey Winsor and Newton fellow, has begun to shed.

I picked up the television, put it on the couch, puffed up the carpet where the television had flattened it out, put the television back, Windexed the screen, moved the computer desk, vacuumed underneath it, puffed up the carpet where the wheels had dug in, put the computer desk back, moved the bookcase--well, I did the same thing with every piece of furniture I have. You get the picture. I went out in the solarium and Windexed floor to ceiling, read and followed the instructions for the self-cleaning oven, scrubbed the insides of exploded kidney beans off the inside of the microwave, took all the expired stuff out of the fridge, and gave Stella a bath. (This becomes funny later.) Stella, hating her bath, emptied my shampoo bottle onto the floor and dug a hole in the soap.

I used Q-tips to clean the Venetian blinds, and dusted every shelf I could find, including the high ones. I took the duvet Mother sent out of its plastic sleeve and made the bed (which hasn't been slept in since Christmas). I Lysoled every Lysol-able surface, and opened every window so there wouldn't be a Lysol smell. I took all my garbage down to the garbage room, and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed. (I must be allergic to garbage.) And then it was Tuesday morning, and the landlord pulled a no-show.

Bugger.

THE TURKISH DELIGHT

I hate Turkish Delight. It's disturbingly pink, and it tastes like glue. Thus, I wasn't best pleased when I was given a great huge bag of it. I choked down a token lump in the name of politeness and gratitude and so forth, then put the rest aside for "later". ("Later", in this case, meaning "the dustbin".) I got distracted, though, and forgot all about its loathsome presence. The open bag was still sitting there, awaiting disposal, when I let Stella out to play. Stupid damn rat made a beeline for it, and ran off with two huge lumps in her pouches. I tried to dig them out, but she kept moving, and then she got behind the couch and started gulping them down. I scraped her out with a Swiffer, but by the time I got my hands on her, it was too late. I poked my fingers into her pouches, but there was nothing there but goop. Oh, and teeth. Big fuckin' teeth. I got a line-shaped scar on the palm of my left hand for my trouble.

Later that night, Stella also got her comeuppance, in the form of explosive diarrhea. The stench was unbearable, and all attempts to clean up the offending mess were met with snapping and angry squeals. I sat as far away from her cage as I could get, and phoned the all-night emergency vet.

"Don't bring her in now," said the vet. "It'll cost you twice as much for an after-hours consultation, and the diarrhea will probably clear up on its own, once the candy works itself out of her system."

So I went to bed, and in the morning, I re-bathed my horrendously malodorous pet, and scrubbed her cage from top to bottom. I opened all the windows as wide as they would go, and hung papers dipped in orange extract from the ceiling, but the smell still lingered for days.

THE GIANT STORM

A couple of days after the Turkish Delight incident, there was an enormous thunderstorm. I was zombified in front of the computer, and Stella was running around my feet, bothering me. All was quiet and calm. Then, out of nowhere, rain started pounding down in solid sheets. It was absolutely deafening--and then thunder clapped! I jumped, and that damn rat jumped, and then she shat all over the floor.

"You...!", I shouted. I couldn't come up with any epithet scathing enough to cover the situation, so I yelled "You!" a few more times as I chased her down.

"You," I sighed, herding her into her cage, "are going to the vet in the morning."

THE VET

True to my word, I did, indeed, take Stella to the vet. The trip didn't go very well. I should've known things were headed downhill when a cat vomited through the bars of its carrier, all over its owner's knees and the floor. Cat vomit doesn't bug me as much as human vomit does, but vomit is vomit, so I became very agitated and out-of-sorts. The more impatient I got, the longer the wait seemed to go on, and by the time it was Stella's turn, I felt like I'd been there forever, and just wanted to go home and have a nap. I should've brought a book to pass the time.

In the consultation room, I told the vet about the Turkish Delight and the diarrhea, and how it had seemed to clear up, but had come back during the thunderstorm. The vet nodded, then opened Stella's cage to have a look at her.

"Don't put your hand in," I warned him. "She'll bite you."

"Oh, it's OK," said the vet. "I know how to handle--"

Stella lunged. I yipped, and pushed her off the table. I didn't mean to push her off the table, of course, but that's what happened. Instead of skittering just shy of the vet's exposed hand, she lost her balance completely and skidded out of control. She teetered for a moment on the edge, then slid off the slick plastic table and onto the floor. That rat knows an opportunity when she sees one, and she took advantage of this particular one to run round and round in circles, adroitly eluding every attempt to capture her. It was very embarrassing.

"Well," panted the vet, trapping her under a wastepaper basket, "I don't think there's anything seriously wrong with this rat."

"Skeeeeeek!", protested Stella.

"She does that all the time," I told the vet, who looked rather taken aback. "Giant rats are much more vocal than ordinary rats."

A hundred dollars later, I went home with Stella (in her cage) under one arm, and a bag of special high-nutrition rodent food under the other. The food, which cost twenty-six dollars, ended up all over the floor, and Stella dined on rice, plum sauce, and steamed mixed vegetables. Stupid rat. (Well, one of us is a stupid rat, at any rate.)

THE LANDLORD AGAIN

It's been a tiring week, all things considered. I've been...tired. Come to think of it, I'm rather dozy even now. But the thing is--and I don't understand this--how do Coke cans form themselves into invading armies and annex my desk in the space of a week? An entire Coca-Cola military campaign's been waged, and where was I? When did I spill something sticky on the kitchen floor? When did my shower regreen itself? How have the efforts of last weekend come undone already? There are boxes in the hallway again--where did those come from? Did I bring them? What were they for? How much longer can I sit here writing about last week before I run out of things to say, and have to set to cleaning once again?

I'll have to go to the garbage room again. I'll be sneezy and fuzzy-headed for a week. They should increase the size of the rubbish chute, so I could get the boxes in there. Oh, what a pain! I'll have to waste the whole day cleaning, and I ought to be working on the Fleshrot Halloween Special, and various portraits, and a drawing of some rats, and...well, you know, work stuff. I won't make the Fleshrot deadline. I've had to ask for an extension.

See, the landlord's rescheduled--he'll be here on Monday. Curse that landlord--to say nothing of vomiting cats, shitty-arsed rats, giant thunderstorms, Turkish Delight, and nasally-irritating garbage rooms.

ON A BRIGHTER NOTE

I did manage to get the picture I'd written the note to myself about finished last week--it'd probably have turned out better if I'd done it all in one sitting, instead of cramming bits of it in whenever I had a moment, but I can always do another version later. I'm envisioning a version with more action in it--more of a dynamic composition.

At any rate, this is my first crack at it: