High and Dry

The last month has been the first time I’ve lived alone in my life. My roommate returns on Sunday, so the experiment will be ending soon, but I’ve learned a thing or two from it. During my two years living in a student walk-up apartment in Chicago everything pretty much worked. The worst that ever happened was the Internet went out a few times—a pain no doubt, but nothing very major. (I should note, for the record, that last winter while I was away our apartment was robbed and my desktop computer, an extraordinarily solid and fast machine named Big Blue, was stolen. That sucked, but it didn’t require any sort of maintenance issues since one of my roommates was on the scene long before I returned.)

The last month in my Buenos Aires apartment has been as eventful in maintenance issues as my two years in Chicago were not. My sink stopped draining about two weeks ago and resisted the best efforts of Drain-O, a plunger, and the building’s porter. On Monday, I finally decided this needed outside help, and I got the porter to bring in a plumber who unclogged the pipes with a strange machine that was basically an outboard motor with a metal coil threaded through it. The clogged drain was a nuisance, but even when stopped up, the water would drain eventually and I really only noticed it when washing dishes.

It paled and continues to pale in comparison to this fact: I have not taken a hot, warm, or even lukewarm shower in two weeks. Shortly after the sink clogged, all of the hot water in the apartment stopped. I was extremely lazy about this, putting off talking to anyone in the hopes that it would somehow fix itself. (My discomfort in speaking Spanish is a very good excuse to justify inaction.) Since I finally decided to address the issue, the porter has been up here several times with no luck. He has, however, finally made a diagnosis: the water heater is clogged, impeding the flow of the water through it. Another plumber was supposed to come last night, but he didn’t. I was in the office all of today and couldn’t be at home. Hopefully, tomorrow the problem will be fixed. For now, another cold shower and dreams of savoring my first warm shower, hopefully, maybe, possibly tomorrow night.