Maxigumee

Today wasn’t really the greatest day ever. It started out a little rocky and it didn’t get too much better. I was woken up at about two in the morning last night to the horrible clanging of Russell’s radiator. Combined with the wind punching at the windows, the sound made it impossible to sleep. I assumed that Russell would be awake from this as well and I looked up at him and said, “What is that noise?” He didn’t respond and he seemed to be sleeping as calmly as ever. I tried to get to sleep, rolling my head in different directions, trying to curl up a bit tighter. Eventually, I managed to get to sleep while holding my hand over my ear.

I woke up somewhat well rested, despite the radiator’s little episode in the middle of the night. I instructed Russell to be ready for the FedEx guy since I had ordered slides of my portfolio on rush overnight shipping. I got out of the shower, got dressed, ate some breakfast…. I went into Russell’s room and found that the FedEx truck was parked right outside of the apartment building.

Since Russell was about to leave to get copies of the apartment keys made for me, I told him to get the package from the FedEx guy on the way out. I watched out the window and saw Russell leave the building. Unfortunately, the FedEx guy was nowhere to be found. The truck was there. But no FedEx guy. I assumed that he was at some other apartment and would soon be coming to this one. I put some gel in my hair so I wouldn’t look gross when I had to go sign for the slides. I went back to the window and OH. MY. GOD. The FedEx truck was gone. Where the hell are the slides that I paid $25 extra dollars for to be delivered OVER NIGHT? I need those slides to be handed in to the School of Visual Arts by tomorrow morning at 10! Eeee!

Russell got back from his excursion carrying a Starbucks cup but without a copy of the keys. He told me that the key place was closed and that he would give me his keys as long as I didn’t lose them. He told me that I needed to be back at the apartment by eight at night because his classes were ending then. We left to go to the subway station, Russell showed me which train I needed to get onto to visit Brooklyn College, and he got on his own train.

I got on the 2 train and went to the college to pick up some scholarship and honors program forms. When I got back to the train station, I was a bit confused over which train to get on. The station was the end of the line for both trains, so it was basically a dead end. Both of them said 2, so I decided to get on the one that everybody seemed to be heading for. The train started and I checked the little subway map to see how many stops I needed. And then I kind of freaked out. The subway map was for a 5 train not a 2. All of the stops were different! WHERE WAS MY STOP ON THE MAP?!?!? I decided that I would get off at the eighth stop (since that was the stop I was going to get off at originally), wrong name or not. It turned out that the stops on the map were different than the ones they were announcing and some of the stops started becoming familiar. I got off at the Brooklyn museum like I had planned and looked around there for about forty minutes.

After I was all full of museum, I left and got back on the train. I got off in Russell’s neighborhood and decided I’d look for a place to develop my photos. I found one and dropped off my film. I stopped at Starbucks for a little bit of lunch and then walked back to the apartment.

I tried to do some things to pass the time between then and when Russell would be getting back later at night. I checked my e-mail, posted a little fundraiser to raise money for my camera, talked to people online, downloaded yesterday’s episode of Lost…. After about an hour or so, I decided that I should probably go and pick up the photos.

I stood up, got my cell phone and my backpack together, and searched my coat for the apartment keys. They weren’t there. I checked the table. Not there. I checked my bed. Not there. I checked Russell’s bed. Not there….. In the middle of my little search, I decided that maybe I wanted to go to the bathroom.

I kept looking for the keys. Then I decided that I kind of REALLY needed to go to the bathroom. I had been a little hesitant to do that sort of bathroom use up to that point since I was kind of paranoid that people might be listening or that I might plug the incredibly tiny, tiny toilet hole. Since neither Russell or his roomates were home, I decided that I was going to abandon my key search and go to the bathroom. I rushed to the bathroom, flipped open the seat and sat down.

La, la, la, la, la……

Thennn….. I wasn’t quite done yet and I had only just gone a little bit, but I decided not to risk it with such a tiny, tiny little toilet hole. I flushed the toilet. And then I heard it. You know the noise. The OH-GOD-THIS-TOILET-WILL-NOT-FLUSH noise. I flushed the toilet once again and found that whatever I had done had clogged the tiny, tiny little toilet hole and water was filling the toilet bowl to the brim. I waited until the water went down a little bit and then I tried flushing it again. Once again, the toilet filled to the top with a soup of horrible grossness and only emptied itself half way.

I had no other option. I needed to use the dark little Plunger of Doom. I wasn’t even sure that it was a plunger. It looked more like some sort of odd sexual device than a plunger, but since it was sitting right next to the toilet and I was in a complete state of panic, I decided to take my chances. I took the plunger from its little corner and lifted it above the toilet. I looked in disgust at the end of the plunger, covered in bits of toilet paper and God-knows-whatses, and I plunged the Plunger of Doom into the murky toilet bowl.

Now, you need to understand that I have never ever once in my entire life used a plunger. This was my very first plunger experience and I am sorry to say that with the complete disgustingness of the entire thing combined with my total anal OCD germ-freakishness, it was probably one of the most horrible and scarring experiences of my life. As I plunged the plunger and lifted it to see all of the disgusting things it had picked up plop back into the toilet, the expression on my face was one of complete horror and disgust.

I plunged the plunger harder and lifted it again. Once again, the things it had pulled up spilled out with a horrible spashing noise. I thought that maybe this meant that the toilet was unplugged. I flushed the toilet. Once again, I heard it. The evil, evil OH-GOD-THIS-TOILET-WILL-NOT-FLUSH noise.

At the edge of insanity now and completely paranoid that somebody might walk in at any moment, I called Russell. “Russell?” I whispered into the phone. “I just plugged their toilet.”

He basically told me to do everything that I was already doing. “You really need to push that plunger. It’s the worst plunger in the world, honestly. I have this problem all the time. If that doesn’t work, I’ll help you later on tonight. Or maybe one of my roommates can help you.”

“One of your ROOMMATES?!” The idea of one of his roommates having to help me flush my poop down the toilet was more terrifying than the idea of spending a night in Michael Jackson’s house. I freaked out even more. I started thrusting that plunger as hard as I could into the toilet over and over and over again. The experience was made even more disgusting after several droplets of toilet water came up and landed on my hands.

“Russell? Are you still there? Most of the water has gone down and now it’s a tiny little gross puddle in the bottom of the toilet. But it’s still there. What do I do?”

“Try flushing the toilet.”

I pressed flush and “HOLY CRAP JESUS NOT AGAIN!” the toilet filled to the top and stayed like that.

“PLEASE GOD JESUS ALMIGHTY MOSES JOSEPH BUDDHA. FLUSH THE TOILET.”

After grovelling in front of the toilet and several more highly-intsense plunger plunges, I finally got the toilet to flush successfully. I breathed a sigh of relief and went to the sink to scald my hands off.

As I was washing my hands, I looked over to the toilet area and found that this whole dirty business was not over. The Plunger of Doom, the horrible, gross, black, strange looking Plunger of Doom was LEAKING TOILET WATER ONTO THE FLOOR. I dashed to the kitchen unrolled about half of the paper towel roll and threw it down onto the floor. I got more paper towel and wiped across the floor, my disgust and shame increasing by the second. I threw out the paper towels, got some Clorox from the kitchen and sprayed the bathroom floor with it. I then started the hand scalding and frantic hand-santizing over again.

Still totally shaken from this tragic event, I went back to Russell’s room and began the search for my keys again. I found them under some papers on his table. I grabbed my backpack and my coat and left the apartment. I went to the bank, picked up some groceries for dinner, and picked up the prints from the one hour photo place. As I walked, I opened the photo envelope and found that many of the photos (just like the one at the top of the entry) were actually two photos combined onto one print. I couldn’t tell whether it was the fault of my broken camera or the photo developer, but I was pissed that I had to pay $13 for it. Luckily, the whole accident made the pictures look kind of cool so I’m not THAT upset.

I’m also feeling a little better since two people have already donated to my Camera Fund. I can’t thank them enough and I can’t believe they responded that fast. I love the internet. Annnnyway. The picture that appears at the top of the post was taken when I went with Russell and Nancy to the Museum of Modern Art yesterday. To see those photos in a slideshow, click here. To see them in an album, click here.

So. I have written an encredibly long and detailed entry about a horrible day and I included bodily functions and gross things. If that isn’t a desperate plea for a vote at the 2006 Bloggies, I don’t know what is. (I’m nominated for Best Teen Blog, by the way.)