It was when I realized that I hasn't had time to wash my sheets in two months, that I decided to take a day off. Actually, it was less a decision than a total physical rebellion against being awake. My phone rang with messages for the next two hours from six different people. Finally at ten, I hoisted my evidently exhausted body off the bed, dragging the sheets with me into the bathroom for a good soaking. And when the power went out ten minutes later, I did what I usually do, which is to shrug my shoulders and think to myself, 'Typical.'
I clumped downstairs to whip up some soul-healing cookie dough. Since the power was off, I thought first about where exactly the butter was sitting in the fridge so when I opened it I could snatch the butter and close it as quickly as possible to save the cold air. And in this climate cold air is luxury. So, after standing with the door open for a good four seconds looking for the butter which was not where I thought it was, I grabbed a bowl of mac'n'cheese, and sat down in the living room for a nice quiet breakfast.
And that is when the pounding began. There had been workmen in and out of the unit next door for the last month, drilling and banging and slowing making the giant pile of sand out front disappear into the house. The beautiful tree in back had been replaced with a cinder block wall, and chunks of concrete littered my garden. I blamed them for the power outage. With an exceptionally large thunk, the power kicked back on, and I was saved from the soupy mess I feared my fridge would become.
I should have known you never get something for nothing because at that moment a dictionary-sized clump of my neighbor's wall came sailing building-like through my kitchen window. I would have you imagine the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary like the ones that have permanent eye-level stands at librarys because they are too heavy to shelve, coming through the glass with the sheer grace of an urban office building. Right, moving on.
Since I was sitting in the living room enjoying the benefits of an electrically powered fan, I was completely unharmed by this intrusion. I was, however, unable to think to myself, 'Typical,' about this particular incident. Even for this country, flying bits of wall are fairly rare. I was able to think to myself, 'At least it isn't raining,' but then knocked on my table lest something hard and heavy come falling out of the sky. I put on my flip flops before going into the kitchen to avoid cutting my feet. In a burst of brilliance I grabbed the broom on my way in. I pushed some of the filthy glass shards out of my path; apparently it had been months since I'd washed the windows, as well. I squatted down to check out this hulk, which truly bore a startling resemblance to the OED trying to behave like an office building. At this point, I began to wonder if anyone next door had notice they were missing a large chunk of wall.
Then a dump truck came along and, thankfully, replaced the giant pile of sand out front, slamming its rear end into the street and startling my all ready skittish self into flopping sideways into the pile of glass I'd so carefully swept out of my way. As I gazed like a salmon at my now bleeding right hand, I thought to myself, 'Typical,' and also, 'I should have washed the windows.' Leaving the OED to its own devices, I tried not to bleed on my clothes while I made my way to the bathroom, plucking bits of glass out of my skin. It occured to me, s I was rinsing my wounds, that perhaps I would have done better to go to work today. But things being as they are, my day's excitement was not nearly over.
Because when I left the bathroom to fetch antibiotic ointment and gauze pads from my medical kit upstairs, I paused to glare at OED, but discovered at the zenith of the glare's strength, that OED had shifted appriximately two feet to the right, towards the back door, totally deflecting my only defence against such things. I stood a moment at the foot of the stairs, wondering if I should proceed with the gauze plan or stay and watch OED, in case it was planning to head right out the door and I would never know if it squeezed the toothpaste from the bottom or if we could have been great together. I also wondered if I hadn't contracted some sort of halucinatory blood toxin, in which case the moral of this story would have to be, 'Always keep immaculately clean windows.' However, that is not the case. The moral could be something along the lines of, 'Cleanliness is next to godliness,' or even better, 'You can't judge a book by its cover.'
I decided, like in the butter situation, to run and get my kit as quickly as possible, then run back down to see if OED had moved. Miraculously, this plan proceeded without mishap. When I got back to the kitchen, OED had scooted another foot towards the door, but stopped when it saw me. Wondering how it planned to get through a locked door and fearing for my sanity I hid round the corner, with the thought that if I actually caught it moving it would be forced to explain itself. I stood there wishing beyond hope that another human would show up and be able to corroberate OED's migration.
Upon hearing the sound of an office building doing ballet in ground glass, I whipped my body around the corner pointing at OED, shouting 'A-ha!' and weilding my kit as a weapon of truth and science. It stopped, looking at me, sizing me up, which was odd since it had taken the shape of a dictionary and they usually don't have eyes, or sensory organs at all for that matter. 'A-ha!,' I shouted again, hoping it would make more if an impression if repeated, and knowing that the phrase was universal for, 'Gotcha, now explain yourself!' But OED remained stoic, and I fell to divising new tactics. Before I could think of anything, though, OED upended itself with a graceless clump, and wobbled towards me over the arrary of glass, a monolithic toddler. I shouted, 'A-ha!' once more, kit swinging wildly from my uninjured hand, just to see if it responded to the universal number three, but mostly for lack of any other logical action to take. This time it worked; well, it stopped it in its tracks anyway. It stared at me, or rather, I realized, it was looking at my kit. Falling back on its side, it inched towards me, sliding marginally more smoothly than its clunky toddle. The medical kit trembled in my hand. It opened, spiling its contents, and embraced OEC, which to my amazment fit perfectly inside, and then lay quietly on the floor.
I sat down to gather my wits and the scattered bandage and packets. I was unable to respond in any way when three normal looking construction workers walked into the kitchen. They looked around, saw my still-bleeding hand, the kit and the mess, and did not see OED who was of course still inside the kit. One of them asked me if I was all right. I nodded. The middle one walked over to examine the window, while the last asked if I had seen what had broken it. I shook my head. The looked at each other, then looked at me, and walked out.
I proceeded, at last, to cover my cuts, and after a few moments, OED judeged it was safe to emerge. It bounded out, bowed a deep thank you, and lifted itself by the corner through the hole in the glass. I watched as it climbed through the air and over the wall where there used to be a tree. I stayed sitting on the floor amid the morning's detritus, focusing mostly on wanting my hand to stop throbbing. A few resounding thuds reverberated through the wall, and seconds later a whole fleet of book-like flying miniature office buildings came soaring awkwardly out of the house. There were a number of large editions including the St. James Bible, the single volume 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, 'Les Miserables,' 'War and Peace,' and inevitably, 'The Complete Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' and several others followed by a small flock of paper back children's novels. OED swooped thinkly back around to give one last look of gratitude and escorted the lot of them into a wormhole that had materialized directly over my backyard. It closed quickly, leaving me to wonder where they had gone, and then, indeed, where they had come from in the first place.
It immediately began to rain. I swept up the glass, and not daring to look next door, dumped it into the recently increased pile of sand. It occured to me then that I should tell my landlady the window was broken. Then I thought about how it was going to be a real pain to wash my sheets with a cut up hand, to say nothing about getting them to dry inside before bedtime since it was now raining buckets. And though I would have been less surprised today than any other had buckets actually been falling out of the sky, I thought to myself, 'Typical,' and headed upstairs.
I clumped downstairs to whip up some soul-healing cookie dough. Since the power was off, I thought first about where exactly the butter was sitting in the fridge so when I opened it I could snatch the butter and close it as quickly as possible to save the cold air. And in this climate cold air is luxury. So, after standing with the door open for a good four seconds looking for the butter which was not where I thought it was, I grabbed a bowl of mac'n'cheese, and sat down in the living room for a nice quiet breakfast.
And that is when the pounding began. There had been workmen in and out of the unit next door for the last month, drilling and banging and slowing making the giant pile of sand out front disappear into the house. The beautiful tree in back had been replaced with a cinder block wall, and chunks of concrete littered my garden. I blamed them for the power outage. With an exceptionally large thunk, the power kicked back on, and I was saved from the soupy mess I feared my fridge would become.
I should have known you never get something for nothing because at that moment a dictionary-sized clump of my neighbor's wall came sailing building-like through my kitchen window. I would have you imagine the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary like the ones that have permanent eye-level stands at librarys because they are too heavy to shelve, coming through the glass with the sheer grace of an urban office building. Right, moving on.
Since I was sitting in the living room enjoying the benefits of an electrically powered fan, I was completely unharmed by this intrusion. I was, however, unable to think to myself, 'Typical,' about this particular incident. Even for this country, flying bits of wall are fairly rare. I was able to think to myself, 'At least it isn't raining,' but then knocked on my table lest something hard and heavy come falling out of the sky. I put on my flip flops before going into the kitchen to avoid cutting my feet. In a burst of brilliance I grabbed the broom on my way in. I pushed some of the filthy glass shards out of my path; apparently it had been months since I'd washed the windows, as well. I squatted down to check out this hulk, which truly bore a startling resemblance to the OED trying to behave like an office building. At this point, I began to wonder if anyone next door had notice they were missing a large chunk of wall.
Then a dump truck came along and, thankfully, replaced the giant pile of sand out front, slamming its rear end into the street and startling my all ready skittish self into flopping sideways into the pile of glass I'd so carefully swept out of my way. As I gazed like a salmon at my now bleeding right hand, I thought to myself, 'Typical,' and also, 'I should have washed the windows.' Leaving the OED to its own devices, I tried not to bleed on my clothes while I made my way to the bathroom, plucking bits of glass out of my skin. It occured to me, s I was rinsing my wounds, that perhaps I would have done better to go to work today. But things being as they are, my day's excitement was not nearly over.
Because when I left the bathroom to fetch antibiotic ointment and gauze pads from my medical kit upstairs, I paused to glare at OED, but discovered at the zenith of the glare's strength, that OED had shifted appriximately two feet to the right, towards the back door, totally deflecting my only defence against such things. I stood a moment at the foot of the stairs, wondering if I should proceed with the gauze plan or stay and watch OED, in case it was planning to head right out the door and I would never know if it squeezed the toothpaste from the bottom or if we could have been great together. I also wondered if I hadn't contracted some sort of halucinatory blood toxin, in which case the moral of this story would have to be, 'Always keep immaculately clean windows.' However, that is not the case. The moral could be something along the lines of, 'Cleanliness is next to godliness,' or even better, 'You can't judge a book by its cover.'
I decided, like in the butter situation, to run and get my kit as quickly as possible, then run back down to see if OED had moved. Miraculously, this plan proceeded without mishap. When I got back to the kitchen, OED had scooted another foot towards the door, but stopped when it saw me. Wondering how it planned to get through a locked door and fearing for my sanity I hid round the corner, with the thought that if I actually caught it moving it would be forced to explain itself. I stood there wishing beyond hope that another human would show up and be able to corroberate OED's migration.
Upon hearing the sound of an office building doing ballet in ground glass, I whipped my body around the corner pointing at OED, shouting 'A-ha!' and weilding my kit as a weapon of truth and science. It stopped, looking at me, sizing me up, which was odd since it had taken the shape of a dictionary and they usually don't have eyes, or sensory organs at all for that matter. 'A-ha!,' I shouted again, hoping it would make more if an impression if repeated, and knowing that the phrase was universal for, 'Gotcha, now explain yourself!' But OED remained stoic, and I fell to divising new tactics. Before I could think of anything, though, OED upended itself with a graceless clump, and wobbled towards me over the arrary of glass, a monolithic toddler. I shouted, 'A-ha!' once more, kit swinging wildly from my uninjured hand, just to see if it responded to the universal number three, but mostly for lack of any other logical action to take. This time it worked; well, it stopped it in its tracks anyway. It stared at me, or rather, I realized, it was looking at my kit. Falling back on its side, it inched towards me, sliding marginally more smoothly than its clunky toddle. The medical kit trembled in my hand. It opened, spiling its contents, and embraced OEC, which to my amazment fit perfectly inside, and then lay quietly on the floor.
I sat down to gather my wits and the scattered bandage and packets. I was unable to respond in any way when three normal looking construction workers walked into the kitchen. They looked around, saw my still-bleeding hand, the kit and the mess, and did not see OED who was of course still inside the kit. One of them asked me if I was all right. I nodded. The middle one walked over to examine the window, while the last asked if I had seen what had broken it. I shook my head. The looked at each other, then looked at me, and walked out.
I proceeded, at last, to cover my cuts, and after a few moments, OED judeged it was safe to emerge. It bounded out, bowed a deep thank you, and lifted itself by the corner through the hole in the glass. I watched as it climbed through the air and over the wall where there used to be a tree. I stayed sitting on the floor amid the morning's detritus, focusing mostly on wanting my hand to stop throbbing. A few resounding thuds reverberated through the wall, and seconds later a whole fleet of book-like flying miniature office buildings came soaring awkwardly out of the house. There were a number of large editions including the St. James Bible, the single volume 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy, 'Les Miserables,' 'War and Peace,' and inevitably, 'The Complete Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' and several others followed by a small flock of paper back children's novels. OED swooped thinkly back around to give one last look of gratitude and escorted the lot of them into a wormhole that had materialized directly over my backyard. It closed quickly, leaving me to wonder where they had gone, and then, indeed, where they had come from in the first place.
It immediately began to rain. I swept up the glass, and not daring to look next door, dumped it into the recently increased pile of sand. It occured to me then that I should tell my landlady the window was broken. Then I thought about how it was going to be a real pain to wash my sheets with a cut up hand, to say nothing about getting them to dry inside before bedtime since it was now raining buckets. And though I would have been less surprised today than any other had buckets actually been falling out of the sky, I thought to myself, 'Typical,' and headed upstairs.
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