It has been a long four days. This past Friday, I noticed a lot of activity outside my window; police officers and all sorts of other "official" looking people mulling about in the parking lot of my apartment complex. Police presence is the norm around here...I'm used to seeing them on a daily basis lately, though they've never been called on my behalf. This part of town in particular is rife with--unsavory, I guess you'd say--characters, but the rent is cheap and it's all I can afford for the time being. I was a little alarmed, though, at the sheer number of officials present, so I figured it had had to be something big. I didn't dare go out and ask; whereas I'm not generally afraid of police--after all, their job is to protect and serve, right?--I didn't really want a part in whatever it was that they were doing out there, so I stayed put until I knew they were gone. It took a while, but they finally left after a few hours.
I decided to go ask management what was going on, but got no further than just outside my door before I found out what the problem was. A large section of the walkway on the upstairs level had fallen through and there was (and still is) a giant fucking hole where the walkway had been. Thankfully, no one had gotten hurt and it had just spontaneously collapsed. Come to find out, the police and some people from the city were in the process of condemning the building, and that was the strange activity I had noticed earlier. The manager told me that she was trying to prepare other apartments for everybody to be relocated to and that she would let me know when and where I was to be moved to. And there was a man from the city who was putting up notices on everyone's door--very bright and meretriciously florescent flyers which can probably be seen from a few miles away stating how it was unlawful to inhabit and so forth and so on. It turned out that I was to be moved to the front, near the office, which I thought was just swell since I could probably get a better internet signal and wouldn't have to worry about it fading in and out like it was prone to do once in awhile. Not to mention that I wouldn't have to walk half a mile just to take out the trash as well. Moving on up, so to speak, but not to a DEluxe apartment in the sky or some shit, but an improvement nonetheless.
I was told at first that I could opt to keep the new apartment or choose to go back to my original apartment once they fixed the problems; that I had a week or two to decide. So I packed up the things I needed the most--my computer, some clothes, food, etc. and moved it all to the new place. I was happy with it; the lighting is better and the internet had an excellent signal--five bars. This would work just fine. So I spent all of Friday night/Saturday morning just messing around on the web. At about 8:30 Saturday morning, the signal started to fluctuate...I was hoping that it was just a temporary occurrence; things had just been going too well to start fucking up now. I spent the next hour trying to get connected again, but to no avail. So I decided to go to sleep and worry about it when I got up. When I woke up, I checked it once more; still nothing. Long story short(er), it stayed down until just a few hours ago. Four long ass days without internet access is quite annoying when you're used to being able to get online just about everyday. I was ready to murder someone; I complained several times to management about it and just felt like they weren't really doing anything about it, despite them telling me that they were working on it. That's what they all say, right? There's only so much Freecell and Mahjong one can play without losing one's mind. I swear I dreamed of those damned mahjong tiles last night. I'm really glad that it's working now and that I don't have to kill some damn body.
I found out earlier today (yesterday) that once the building gets fixed and the city deems it fit to live in once again that I have to move back to my original apartment. Everybody's going back to their original places.Talk about a pain in the ass. Seems to me that they should have kept the buildings and walkways in good repair and avoided inconveniencing themselves and, indeed, the tenants like this, but I guess there are unforeseen circumstances sometimes. So in a couple of weeks, it's back to the far reaches of the property and the relative desolation it brings. No, there won't be any 5-bar internet signals, but then again, I've never gone four days without a signal back there either. So, when the time comes, I'll slither back into my dimly lit apartment, back to the familiar setting I've grown accustomed to, and I'll be happy. At least I probably won't be bored.
Eddie
06-22-11
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