I Am Displeased

10 POINTS!

There are times in life when you’re left with that helpless feeling of infancy … the world doesn’t make sense and there’s nothing you can do to the unalterable course of events that are unfolding in front of you … like when your toilet empties on its own and the drain in your bath tub starts spewing forth water and grime.

I was lying in bed last night and heard a gurgling noise coming from the bathroom. When you live alone and your bathroom makes any noise whatsoever it’s never a good thing. Gurgling noises are no exception. So I warily made my way in there, flipped on the light and saw the toilet bubbling … not with air, but water. Just … bubbling water like a spring. It wasn’t running or overflowing or anything.

Then I take another fearful step towards the tub, peer in and see water slowly pushing up out of the drain.

This is a frightening moment.

It happened the other night too. I want to say maybe two nights prior. As I’m standing there I hear that my upstairs neighbor is showering. Those people are the bane of my existence at this apartment.

So as far as I’m concerned, their shower water is somehow running through the drain system and not only preventing anything of mine from draining (because now the toilet is full again and won’t flush without overflowing) but it’s literally forcing its way up into my bathtub.

I am displeased.

I climb back into bed and think about the deeper meaning of this. Get up again, grab some towels and push them up against the cracks under the bathroom doors, pick up anything off the floor (water still rising in the tub) … shrug and figure that’s the best I can do.

It occurred to me that I could try to cover the drain with something … or use the little flip lever that’s supposed to make my bath tub into a bath instead of merely a bucket I stand in while I shower. But it also occurred to me that if I did that the water would only have two other places to go, my sink or the toilet. I preferred it coming into the bathtub.

So, it didn’t overflow while I slept, but it did reach 75-80% of the way to the top, stayed there long enough to leave a clear waterline, and then drained away before I staggered in this morning.

I have now had to bleach and scrub clean my bath tub twice in the last three or four days. I will probably have to do it again when the people upstairs shower next. Until the plumber shows up.

Do not envy my life. I beg of you.