shape of...

lars calls it my laverne and shirley moment.

all i wanted was shelves. i figured it couldn't be difficult. i've managed to build a two-story bedroom for myself with these two tiny hands of mine, and that's still standing. shelves shouldn't be rocket science.

there i was, minding my own business, putting up the shelves that i had cut from 18 gauge, 1/8" x 3/16" staggered perforated steel. i was enjoying the process, content to drill holes in my wall and get things off the ground. the whole concept of needing shelves seemed to be more than just an effort to get things tidy, i needed shelves because i'm totally paranoid about floods and because of this, i'm afraid to leave things on the floor. distributing my posessions in a vertical manner seemed to be the best thing for them in the long run.

i fear for my things because i have the lamest superpower known to mankind. it turns out that i have this weird, uncontrollable ability to beckon floods. floods have started to happen to me on a suspiciously frequent basis and i'm beginning to think i should take this as a sign. it's like i'm living in a bad graphic novel or a slow, boring horror movie gone awry. why didn't i get one of the cool superpowers? something useful, like being able to read other people's minds or use wonder woman's magic lasso? no, my special gift is the gift of floods. what bothers me the most about this is that i always thought the lamest justice leaguers were the wonder twins. shape of an animal and form of water? what the hell is that going to do?

i'm not exactly sure what triggered the superpower. it just kind of mysteriously appeared, like jesus on a tortilla. the first flood was back in 1996 when i worked in palo alto. it was a crazy winter and rain was pummeling out of the sky, blasting away day and night. the canal next to my office had overflowed and swam through the parking lot and into the underground garage of our building, submerging everything inside. the water destroyed two parked cars and spewed toxic fluids everywhere; gas, battery acid, antifreeze. the model shop was down there as well, so the glues and paints mixed with the soup of car excretions and it was all the worst possible things you would think to combine. it's a surprise that nothing exploded when the water reached the power supply and shorted the electricity out. the building was crippled of light and heat for weeks on afterwards. in a ridiculously pathetic gesture against nature, my co-workers filled beaches full of sandbags in a furious frenzy and lined them up against the canal for hours upon hours.

that day always seemed a little bit surreal to me; i think that might have been the day when my non-mutant universe collided with the mutant-superpower universe. the palo alto flood probably would have remained just a weird story, but then there was that day two novembers ago. two days after my grandmother's funeral. i drove into work at my job in a completely different company in san rafael and noticed more water than i could account for at the entrance to my office. i walked inside the building and found maintenance crews walking around in overalls and galoshes as the carpet squished beneath them. the lead maintenance guy stood in the middle of what used to be my dry belongings and looked at me with the saddest eyes.

"you should... get some coffee or something," he said as his crew rushed around him, trying to desaturate the floor.

an underground pipe had breathed its last breath and expired sometime in the early hours of the morning. it released 3000 gallons of water, forced it all in the direction of my desk and then filled the room next to mine in a pool of water that was waist-deep. it wasn't pretty. the management moved our desks to the third floor while they rebuilt our offices. within the next week, the diesel exhaust from the indoor jackhammers got sucked into the air conditioning system and went straight up to the third floor. that is how i got the carbon monoxide poisoning.

there was also that other time, six months ago, when the plumbing at the warehouse got clogged and the plumber shut down the water while he unclogged the nasty mess that had blocked the pipes. when all was said and done, he turned the water supply back on but forgot to reconnect the wastewater hose from the laundry machine, which sits next to my bedroom. someone started doing their laundry and that's when i received the call from my housemate, telling me that my room received all the damage. on the plus side, i got to get rid of that rug i hated so much, but on the other hand, it sucked.

which brings us to last week and the shelves.

as i contentedly drilled holes in my wall, happy with the idea of getting my stuff off the ground and evading future water damage, one of the screws missed the joist and went straight... through the pipe. i heard a hissing sound and panicked.

without thinking things through, i hurriedly removed the screw and right there was when the laverne and shirley moment happened. the water spat itself out the hole and all over my everythings. i was in an all-spastic, all-hyperventilating frenzy that would be considered slapstick humor if it was happening to someone else. there was so much goddamned water everywhere, i could hardly believe it was real.

after several phone calls where a number of friends told me i had to calm way the hell down and that they would be on their way, the flow was staunched, the shutoff valve was found, the floor got mopped and the plumber was called.

things are fine and cool again but now i'm worried. what is it with me and floods? is there a bizarro me that experiences unexpected fires all the time? is there some way i can use this for the good of evil instead of just the powers of lame?

<01.31.04>

previous rant |newer rant | current weblog