{"id":4814,"date":"2006-05-08T14:57:07","date_gmt":"2006-05-08T18:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4814"},"modified":"2022-10-10T08:36:53","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T12:36:53","slug":"my-super-super","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=4814","title":{"rendered":"My Super Super"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I moved into the apartment where I live now the super was a man I rarely saw named Mohammed who was generally surly and rude whenever I would ask him for something – and then – when the fire department arrived in the middle of the night – causing one of my dearest held fantasies to come true <\/a>in one beautiful moment (“Who here’s wearin’ Sierra?”) – Mohammed HID in his apartment. Literally. HID. During a fire emergency. Dude. You’re a super<\/i>. You just … that is SO not how a super is supposed to act during an emergency. Please stop hiding. I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE BECAUSE CIGARETTE SMOKE CONTINUES TO WAFT OUT FROM UNDER THE DOOR. Mohammed was kind of a loser. I actually felt kind of bad for him. It can’t be a nice life- HIDING behind your apartment door, when those pesky tenants start knocking, telling you that the entire fire department has arrived. Also, during the tenure of Mohammed – I have to say that there were some bug issues. I shiver to even say it outloud, because I fear a repeat of the debacle. I lived directly over Mohammed’s pad – and I think he was just hidin’ out down there, with dirty dishes in the sink, CALLING to the bugs to COME VISIT HIM.<\/p>\n

Mohammed disappeared without a trace and suddenly – with no announcement – a new super moved in. And I slowly began to notice changes about the place … it was subtle, but … eventually all-pervasive.<\/p>\n

Here are some of her attributes:<\/p>\n

— She is a hot Latin woman. She wears fuzzy pink cloche hats in the winter, matching gloves, polka-dot sundresses in the summer, and bright red lipstick.<\/p>\n

— In the summer months – she takes a big beach umbrella out into our backyard (right outside my window) and lies out there, sunning herself, wearing a string bikini. I found this alarming the first time I saw it – because I wasn’t ready for it – and nobody is ever in our backyard – but now I find her summer rituals comforting.<\/p>\n

— She scrubs the floors of the stairwell like clockwork – and also scrubs the floors in the basement – very important, due to the garbage bins down there. She is on the frontlines of the battle of the bugs. She takes it seroiusly.<\/p>\n

— She wears fancy cowboy boots and hot outfits.<\/p>\n

— At Christmastime, she procured a small Christmas tree, and fake Christmas presents and put it up in our lobby.<\/p>\n

— She also has procured cheap (but nice-looking) Oriental rugs to put in the lobby as well as the foyer by the mailboxes. Before her – it was just cold kind of dingy tile. Well done, super.<\/p>\n

— She does her laundry every Sunday morning – and hangs it out on clotheslines in our backyard. It is pleasingly old-fashioned of her – and I completely understand because the drier in our building SUCKS. I love to look out and see laundry on the line. However, most of her laundry appears to be sexy underwear, which she breezily strings up on the line for all the surrounding neighbors to see. Again, the first time I saw a billowing line of silken bras RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW, I was alarmed – but now I find it comforting. Meanwhile, she suns herself beneath her own drying lingerie in the backyard – lying on a blanket, wearing a string bikini. I know I’ve mentioned that but I believe it bears mentioning again.<\/p>\n

— There is no longer a musty dingy smell in our public stairwells. It now always smells clean and … kind of astringent-ish – but that’s COMFORTING in an urban environment. You feel SAFE from the BUGS.<\/p>\n

But here’s my favorite part. (Can you tell I love this woman?)<\/p>\n

Her Sunday ritual is obviously similar to mine. We CLEAN. We are DOMESTIC. Her apartment is right below mine – and so I know that she does her laundry – takes it out back – strings it up – and then goes to town on the basement. I can hear vacuum cleaner, etc.<\/p>\n

And what music does she blast? Can you guess? Because she BLASTS music. I can actually FEEL the music through the floor.<\/p>\n

She’s hot, she’s probably in her 40s, she’s got dark skin, a hot body, a Spanish accent – and every Sunday morning what music does she blast?<\/p>\n

John Denver’s Greatest Hits.<\/p>\n

I just love people. I truly do. You never ever <\/i>know what they’re gonna do. Just by looking at her I would never have guessed that John Denver’s Greatest Hits would be her “motivation to clean EVERYTHING IN SIGHT” music – but apparently it is.<\/p>\n

To quote Philadelphia Story: “The time to make up your mind about people<\/i> … is never.”<\/p>\n

I bet, too, if the entire fire department showed up at 2 am one night because of a random alarm going off (please, God willing, let it happen again) … she’d be the first to greet them at the door. Probably wearing some hot nightie, and lipstick perfectly applied. There would be no cowering out of sight! She would face her duties as super with a clear head and perfectly-mascaraed open eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I moved into the apartment where I live now the super was a man I rarely saw named Mohammed who was generally surly and rude whenever I would ask him for something – and then – when the fire … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4814"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179176,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4814\/revisions\/179176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}