The Sheila Variations

The universe ...

... she confuses me. So my friend Michael is coming to stay with me for a bit. Yay! Very excited. Haven't seen him in years. A-whoo-hoo, a-whoo-ha. My apartment is so small that it will be quite interesting, not to mention hysterical, to see our living arrangements. I bought a blow-up mattress (with pump!!) at Wal-Mart (thanks, Mum, for leading the way!) - but still: I have no extra bedroom, so he will basically be sleeping on my floor, which strikes me as intensely comedic. It's so high school! I have fresh sheets and towels - I have gone grocery shopping for my manly guest, and I have made a bit of room in my closet. Which - if you could see my apartment and see what I mean by closet - you would laugh out loud.

I'm excited and happy! A-whoo-hoo, a-whoo-ha! I so rarely have guests! I am ready!

I come home last night after my massage. I smell of patchouli oil and my hair is a wreck. I turn on the light in the bathroom. I brush my teeth. With the light on (this will be an important detail later). I then walk into my wee kitchen. I turn on the light, not realizing how glorious electric power will seem in a matter of moments. I walk into my main room (my living room/bedroom/study/TV/wreckroom/meditation room/etc. etc.) and immediately notice something is off. The electric clock is frighteningly dark. I see no light emanating from my cable box. I go to turn on my light - nothing. No power. It is 10 pm. No power. I find it hard to accept. I try the light by my bed. Nothing. I try the portable fan on the windowsill. Nothing. I try my little red-shaded lamp across the room. Nothing. Weirdly - when I turn on my ceiling fan - IT goes on.

So I'm half in light, half in darkness. It wouldn't have mattered so much if it had been my kitchen plunged into the depths of night - because Michael and I won't be hanging out in the kitchen.

Horrible thoughts reverberate through my brain, as I stare with dilated eyes into the pitch-black of my apartment. Now I will not be able to blow up the mattress, since it requires a plug. Which ... the thought is too awful to contemplate. Michael arrives after a long flight. I say, shyly, "We have not seen one another in years, great to see you, it is pitch black in my apartment, and guess what, you have to sleep in my bed with me." I shiver at the impropriety. I think: maybe I can blow up the mattress in the kitchen? Because THERE'S ELECTRICITY IN THERE?

I am immediately embarrassed. As though this glitch is somehow my fault even though my bill is paid (obviously - since one half of my apartment is literally ABLAZE with electric bulbs). It is too late to call the electric company - so I have to wait it out. In the dark.

My computer runs on its battery. I turn it on. I light a ton of candles. Bill and I talk. Which is a good thing, there is much laughter ("I have an audition next week!" "What's it for?" "Antigone." Pause. "Is that a Civil War play?" Think about it. Heh heh. Guess you had to be there. I howled.) Anyway - by the time I got off the phone with Bill I was ready for bed. Still beset with anxieties about my power-less main room and what it wiill mean in terms of my house guest who is, as we speak, shrieking towards the east coast.

My alarm clock is problematic. I need it to wake up. I have a lot to do in the morning!! So I plug the thing in in the kitchen, and jack the volume up to the max. It works. I wake up this morning to the sound of a shrill overly jolly DJ chick hollering about how her moon is in Virgo - her voice bellowing through my apartment.

Still no power.

I wait until 8 and call the electric company. I am on hold for 25 frickin' minutes. They cannot help me. Of course. So I call my landlord and explain the situation. It's probably a breaker thingamajiggie and they'll send someone over today. I explain my situation - "I have a guest coming into town and I need to blow up his mattress immediately ..." I ask her to call me when the problem is resolved.

She does not.

I come home just now, worried that ... there will be no power. But no - I have power! Yay! I can blow up his mattress! I do not need to greet him swathed in the darkness of midnight holding a candleabra while making some improper suggestion.

I sit down, after making a little dinner, to watch some TV. To just relax after the unbeLIEVable stress (haha) of the past 24 hours. I press the remote. The television flares into life, for a beautiful shining moment, and then with a sickening "whirr" sound - yes, there was a "whirr" - the picture on the television diminishes to a tiny pinprick, and then all goes black.

The TV is SO dead. It was old when I got it and it chose TODAY - when I have a guest on his way - a guest who will have a lot of down time and would probably want to lie about watching television a bit - to DIE. A fiery blazing pin-point of light death.

The universe. She's a bitch of whimsy, is she not?

I wonder what will break next.

Posted by sheila | TrackBack