Imaginary Creatures

Thursday, 8/28/2008

Having this leaky pipe in my kitchen is like having a pet cat. Every morning, I wake up and the first thing I do when I walk out of my bedroom is empty the bowl that has  been collecting the water overnight, much like emptying and refilling your pet's water bowl, or cleaning out its litter box. I mop up the excess water that has spilled over onto the floor, and then I go on with my morning duties. Every afternoon, when I come back to my apartment for a quick lunch, as soon as I walk through the door, I put down my keys and purse and empty the water bowl again and mop if necessary. Rinse and repeat every 3 hours or so. It's kind of nice having something to take care of, even if it is imaginary. I like to think that Indie followed me here all the way from Tacoma. What makes the pet cat seem more real is that I have these bathroom slippers that I bought to avoid having to walk barefoot over the flooded bathroom floor after my showers, and when it is particularly overflowing with water, the slippers make this awful squeegying sound like the meows of a cat that is being squeezed to death under my slippers. Disturbing, I know! 

And also, I think every apartment in this building has been furnished with a pet cricket. I'm not the only one who hears the chirping noise throughout the night, but trying to locate the thing is like a live demonstration of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, sort of. Every time you approach the place where the sound seems to be coming from, it moves away and seems to be coming from a different part of the room. Like, I could have sworn it was coming from the kitchen, but when I crept into the kitchen, it seemed to be coming from the bathroom area, but when I crept into the bathroom area, it went back to the kitchen. This is impossible! It is a fact that nothing can travel faster than light, not gravitons, and certainly not crickets! Is it phuzzy physics/action at a distance, or just the AC at work?