April Showers

I tried to think of some witty introduction, but I really can’t think of way to put a humorous twist on this. My life has turned into an episode of Law & Order, but just the beginning portion.. you know, where they introduce what is going to happen by showing a few unimportant people chatting who then stumble upon a dead body and the woman screams, and the police come, and you never see or think about those people again. My roommate and I are like those people, except that we are in the midst of our own disaster as a result.

Our little episode of Law & Order starts out as such: the scene is set inside an apartment, a clock glows 3:00am in the corner, and a fire alarm goes off. The apartment occupant jumps out of bed, throws on clothes, and dashes outside, only to discover that nobody else from the entire apartment complex comes. Perplexed, she walks back into the apartment to find out why the alarm went off mysteriously in only her apartment, turns on a light, and finds a cascade of water gushing out of the light fixtures and electric outlets. Panicking over the mixture of water and electricity, she calls the fire department and the emergency apartment maintenance man. The maintenance man heads to the apartment directly upstairs, the source of the suspected flooding, and knocks on the door. When there is no answer, he opens the door, and finds himself shin-deep in water. Sloshing through the water, he opens the door to the bathroom… and finds the occupant of the apartment, drowned in the bathtub.

If this were a real episode of ­Law & Order, this is where we would cut to the catchy theme song and the views of New York City. Then, Ed Green and Lennie Briscoe show up to inspect the scene, and we never give another thought to the girls in the flooding apartment below. Except that this isn’t an episode of Law & Order… it’s the current story of my life.

No, I didn’t know the person living above our apartment who was apparently incredibly drunk and no, this most certainly isn't an April Fool's joke although my father thought it was when I called him with the news. All I know is that my planned day of finishing up a paper for my cancer prevention course has suddenly become a bit more stressful than originally anticipated. The carpet people have already come and ripped up the edges of the carpet and inserted massive dryers underneath, but right now the carpet is the least of my concern. The water was pouring out of the light fixtures in the kitchen and the bathroom, which is where the main carpet damage was done. The living room seems pretty unharmed, as is my roommate's room. My room, however, is a slightly different story. Well over half the ceiling of the room and part of the ceiling of my walk-in closet is completely water damaged, and the water is spreading across rapidly, so I am sure by now the entire ceiling is ruined. Instead of standard apartment painted white, it’s turning almost a rust color, and literally dripping big rust-colored water droplets onto the beige carpeting. Because it is dripping water, it’s starting to sag. I’ve moved out a bookshelf, my electronics, and a dresser, but my bed, desk, and a second dresser are still being held hostage in the room, unable to be moved out due to the positioning of the giant carpet-drying fans. I’ll be camping out at my boyfriend’s apartment for the night, but regardless of whether or not the ceiling collapses in my room, it will have to be completely ripped out and replaced, which will take quite a lot of work, and thus I will be homeless for quite some time and am not quite sure where I will be able to stay during the week. I’ll go back tomorrow evening to survey the damage, and if the ceiling has not yet collapsed, try to move anything else out of my room and into our living room, which is now cluttered with my belongings. I’m pretty nervous about the return however, and the potential damage to everything I own, which of course is not covered by the apartment.

So, um, if you happen to know anyone with a spare couch/room in the D.C. area who is willing to take in a quiet, neat, friendly, and unexpectedly homeless graduate student for a few weeks, or um, would like to make any furniture donations if mine is crushed under a collapsed ceiling and bathtub because I can’t afford to buy more off of my meager stipend, err, um, let me know. Oh, and if you’d like to write my pharmacology and/or epidemiology papers that would be swell, because right now I’m finding myself just a bit unable to focus on things other than my pending homelessness, forcing me to succumb to every graduate student’s worst nightmare – literally moving into the lab.