How I Spent My Week

...and then the bat, which had somehow gotten into the rubbish room, fixed me with an evil stare. It squinched up its nose and did a bustly thing with its wings, as though it meant to swoop down on my head. Abandoning my garbage, I took to my heels. At that precise moment, the elastic broke on my knickers. I very nearly found myself in an extremely embarrassing situation, right then. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to seize the offending garment before it could complete its precipitous descent, and--

--and I think that was a dream. Except--except I can't find the pair of knickers in question, so there's a small possibility it really happened. I don't see how there could've been a bat in the dustroom, though. Not in Vancouver--not at this time of year. I must've been dreaming. So, where the hell are my pants?

I have looked at three apartments this week. (Of this much, I'm certain.) One, I found entirely unacceptable (mould everywhere; bizarre garbage-and-scrap-metal structure in the alley out back; inside of toilet bowl brown). At the other two, I was deemed unacceptable, alas. I think I'll start pretending to be a doctor when they ask what I do for a living. They always get this face, see, when I say what I really do. Oh, I can just see it now:

"Do? For a living? I'm a surgeon."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"What sort of surgeon?"

"A thoracic surgeon. Look at these hands!"

"Nice...but I was actually looking at your clothes. I mean, surgeons make quite a lot of money, don't they? Look at that sleeve! There are five holes in that sleeve! Didn't your mother teach you how to dress? Hey, what hospital do you work at, anyway? I have to check up on you. You're just suspicious, is what you are. Get on with you."

"Hey, even surgeons have laundry days."

"Git!"

All right, maybe not.

What a pain, anyhow. I can't find a thing. I feel like a character from one of those grim old Russian books--Ivan Denisovich, perhaps, or wossname Berlioz from The Master and Margarita: prey to the most ludicrous misfortunes! Condemned to eternal scrimping and scraping and eating of thin soup! (Even when I have got money, I still can't cook. I could be richer than Bill Gates, and I'd still be eating water with diced tomatoes and basil in.) At any rate, I half expect to be arrested for something any minute, or packed off to the loony bin. (In Canada, is the "loony bin" really the mint? ZING! Oh, but I'm funny!)

The first apartment I went to, that was the dreadful one. It was two doors down from the one I had when I first came here, back in 1997. I hadn't realized it was so close by, or I wouldn't have gone in the first place. There's nothing good on that particular stretch of East 10th Street. It's one of those neighbourhoods where any fence you lean on will immediately fall down in a shower of woodwormy splinters, and every yard is clogged with weeds. This flat, it was the vortex of misery at the center of everything. Someone had already leaned on the fence out front, and the gate was missing entirely. The garden was so choked even the weeds had weeds on them, and one could scarcely find the front door.

Once inside, I found myself overpowered by a smell beyond description. Borscht, maybe--week-old borscht with camel dung mixed in, and a side-dish of liquefied human flesh. Mix that mess with orange juice and house-paint, then let it stand for a week or two, and you've got this hallway. Faugh. (I think it was really fungus of some sort, but I daren't speculate too closely. Some funguses, they can go up your nose and eat your face off. I hope it wasn't one of those.)

Aside from the stench, the carpet was coming up at the edges, the linoleum had bubbled in the kitchen, the fridge wasn't running, and the walls needed a fresh coat or five. Cracks everywhere, and cobwebs in every corner. There was even a live spider, for Christ's sake. A spider! I ask you! Then, there was the aforementioned brown toilet, the horrible view out the bedroom window, and downstairs neighbours who seemed like they might become noisy in the evenings. There was an awful lot of shuffling going on down there. I don't like to hear shuffling when I'm living alone. Makes me right nervous, and all, as if some bum's crept in, and is about to accost me in my own hallway.

For this, they wanted seven hundred dollars per month, and there wasn't even a washing machine.

The second and third flats were much like this one--your typical downtown fare, going for nine seventy-five and eight-fifty respectively. I had a moment's glimmer of hope at the one on Georgia, when the landlady said she liked my coat. Looking back on it, I should never have taken that coat off. I had on the shirt with the five holes underneath. They weren't obvious holes, and the fabric had scarcely faded at all (which was why I picked it in the first place), but I think it did me in, nonetheless.

...then, I came home, and (feeling sentimental) listened to Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne sing Oh! rimembranza nine times in a row. I also ate a meat pie.

Stella caught a cold, or so I thought, and was taken to the vet. It was the same vet as last time, the one that talked to her as if she could understand him.

"I don't think you have a cold," he told her. "Your nasal discharge is normal, and you seem very lively." (She was standing up on her hind legs, swatting at his sleeve.)

I winced, both at the sight of a grown man talking to a rat, and at the words "nasal discharge".

"What's wrong with her, then?" I asked.

"Nothing, as far as I can see. Maybe a minor nasal irritation."

"So I paid a hundred dollars for...?" I hit myself in the head with a little more force than I'd intended, and made my eyes water.

"No--no charge this time. It's good to see pet owners who bring their friends in before it's too late."

"Really? Really?"

"Yes. Don't worry about it."

Throughout all this, I've suffered most terribly--this rainy weather is dreadful for my health. Every night has found me bunched up in the shower making croaky breathing noises; every morning, I work as hard as possible, hoping to get loads done before I have to lie down again. Stella has been most put out by all this, since it's been cutting into her playtimes. She's busted out of her cage almost every night, and yesterday, she found her travel cage in the closet and ate a big chunk out of the side. I think she could squeeze right out of it now, with that chunk missing. Goddamn rat. I shruck something awful when I saw what she'd done. It sounded a bit like this:

"AAaaaaauauuuuuuwuwwwwwwwwwCUUUUUUUNT!"

Stella, she peeked out from under the dishwasher, where she wasn't supposed to be, and said "Hee hee hee." Cunt. Double cunt. Triple doggie cunt, with an arsehole attached.

...and I think that concludes tonight's expletive explosion. I am going to play some video games now. This does not make me a lazy person. It is the last refuge of a beleaguered soul. (That is my story, and I'm sticking to it.)