UPDATE – For those of you privy to the Great Water Main Break of 2010, I am currently drinking from my Brita and no longer smell of pond water.
But I WILL be drinking beer for a few extra days, just to be safe. (Also, trying to go legit: from user Warhog through Wikimedia Commons)
HOWEVER, it was a close call. For two full work days, I was scared to sweat. I bathed in the runoff of city reservoirs, where homeless men pee and underage kids toss their half-finished PBR, and when my thirst was unbearable I purchased Ethos water at $40,000 a bottle from Starbucks (“5 cents from each bottle goes to saving the world”).
UNTIL THERE WAS NO STARBUCKS. That’s right; the Mecca of Coffee Beans was boarded up and deserted, left without proper coffee-brewing water or the ability to wash their stirring spoons in that strange sink with the spoon-bidet. As a result, I was parched and decaffeinated. When the tremens became too severe, I walked around the corner to Boston Common Coffee Co. and that was closed, too. God was frowning on Boston; I contemplated suicide.
To make matters worse, Comcast, the prominent television, phone, and Internet company currently headed by Satan (not Miroslav), also decided to smite the wireless connection in my apartment. And since Satan apparently doesn’t do weekends, I was left until Monday morning without proper Internet and, thanks to the closing of my caffeinated safe havens, without the option of traveling to the coffee shop, shooting up a chai latte, and checking my e-mail.
Did I mention I smelled like pond water?
ew. (from flickr user emily_* through Creative Commons)
Last but not least, in the category of AWESOME NEWS, my beloved landlord has taken initiative to find a new tenant for my apartment (the lease will be up in August, the eighth month of the year, which comes directly after Not Soon Enough). In doing so, the management company was kind enough to post an ad on Craigslist including my phone number and address so that, at any moment, on any given day, some soul in search of a tiny apartment could come over, check out the place, and KILL ME. I have taken to locking the door three ways before I go to sleep and praying before bedtime, just in case I wind up convincing someone at the Gates that I was meant to go to heaven, where there is Direct TV instead of Comcast and, hopefully, free beer.
Which is, by the way, how I managed to survive the hydropocalypse: by drinking my way home every evening after work. It has gone so well that, in fact, I have continued this practice now that the water is again pure and safe to drink (see: Previous Posts Regarding My Alcohol Consumption). It is proof that, after a crisis such as this, one that plagued the City of Boston for days (two of them), there is rebirth. Out of the bad (no water) comes the good (beer). Life has begun anew, summer is in full swing, the sun is shining, and my apartment smells like pizza. Thank you Ernesto’s, maker of glorious pies, and thank you, God; may your wrath never extend to my apartment or local Starbucks ever again. Amen.
New Year’s Resolution #11: Learn not to take things for granted. Like coffee. Or water. Or beer.
