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Title: Drip

Date Occurred: Saturday, January 18, 1992

Date Written: Saturday, January 18, 1992

Date Prepared for Web Site: April 26, 2019

Written by: Joel T. Kant

Copyright (c) 2019 by Joel T. Kant

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At my apartment in Euclid, Ohio, I tried to relax after having been to the bank and the post office. I have been having trouble accessing money in a bank in Massachusetts to have it transferred to a bank in Ohio. My parents had to find my Massachusetts' bank passbooks among my stuff things I hadn't brought to Ohio in my one load that fit in a Honda Accord. Dad had mailed the passbooks by certified mail. I had signed for and picked up the passbooks at the post office, and then brought them to the Ohio bank. It looked like the banking situation was under control. Getting started in graduate school was a difficult undertaking.

After phoning my parents about the latest news and that I had received the passbooks, I prepared some lunch. Since my old furniture did not fit in my small 1981 Honda Accord and I am trying to be frugal, I have bought two card tables and two lawn chairs. I sat at the card table that did not have the computer on it to eat my lunch.

Also on the table without the computer is a radio. I tried several stations. I found nothing I liked on any of them. I shut the radio off. As I sat in silence eating my lunch in the nearly bare apartment, I thought that my brother Philip was right. I should have found room in the Honda for my stereo with its CD player. Philip had told me that leaving my color TV and VCR in Wisconsin would be okay, but I should be sure to bring my stereo. I did bring a small black-and-white LCD television, but its screen is so small that it is not much fun to watch.

In the silence, I could hear the sliding glass doors shake in the heavy winds coming from Lake Erie. The apartment building I live in borders the lake, so there is nothing to block the wind. It should be a great view in the summer, but it is not that exciting now to see what looks like a field of snow. Along with the shaking of the doors, I heard another sound: a dripping.

I got down on my hands and knees. I found the dripping coming from the heater under the glass doors, but just inside the wall. Even though I could look in the opening in the wall for the heater pipe and see the drops falling, the carpet underneath the heater was not wet.

I called the building maintenance number. Since the carpet was not wet, the woman at the end of the line acted unconcerned. Still, she said somebody would come and look at it.

Three hours later, nobody had been by. I got up and walked across the floor. My stocking feet got wet through the soaked carpet. Strangely, the soaked carpet was on the opposite side of the room as the dripping heater pipe.

I called maintenance again. Within twenty minutes, a repairman arrived. When I showed him the dripping, he stuck his hand in the opening in the wall so that the water dripped on his finger. He jerked his hand back like the water was hot and swore!

Next, I showed him the wet carpet. He looked up where a wet spot was clearly visible on the ceiling.

The repairman talked into a walkie-talkie. He told somebody that he better come up to my apartment. He also said that he was going to check the apartment above mine, but would be right back.

While the first repairman went to check the apartment above mine, a second man showed up at my apartment. His name, sewn on his uniform, was Chuck. He seemed to be the first repairman's supervisor.

The first repairman came back and said that the problem was a broken heater pipe in the apartment above mine. Chuck called somebody else on his walkie-talkie. He ordered carpet cleaning and deodorizing for my apartment along with touch-up painting on the walls. Both men then left for the apartment above mine.

For my own possessions, I seemed to be okay other than a large damp box of envelopes and one or two wet books that had been on the floor since I have no shelves here yet.

THE END

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