I was taking a long shower to start my day - the kind where you actually sit down to shave your legs, where you let the conditioner sit for four full minutes, where you get out feeling kinda prune-like. As I stepped out of shower & onto the bathroom rug, I heard a man's voice - a deep voice, with a thick Spanish accent. I couldn't understand him, or I wasn't listening, because all I could think was, "Someone broke in & is going to kill me & this is what I get for having 'Criminal Minds' on in the background while I work all day & oh my God, my neighbors really ARE criminals, karmaisanunfairbitch."
After much hyperventilating, I calmed down enough to learn that the man in my bedroom was Anthony, the building maintenance man (whom I'd never met), & he had come into the apartment because there was a leak in the one below ours. "What should I do?!" I shouted from the bathroom, still naked & trying to slow my rapidly beating heart. He promised to come back five minutes later; I've never gotten dressed more quickly.
Apparently, a leak from my faucet was filling the light fixture in my downstairs neighbor's master bedroom with water, which is obviously some sort of terrifying electrical hazard. In the 24 hours it took to fix it, Anthony & his son teenage Manny came & went at my apartment as they pleased once I told them they didn't need to knock & that I promised to be dressed. This morning, when Anthony & Manny left after fixing the problem - as well as fixing an issue with my sink & with my towel bar - I thanked them & told them to have a nice weekend, thinking that I wouldn't see them for awhile, given all the fixes they'd just made.
And then an hour later, my cat came into my office all wet, his little paws tracking prints back to the dishwasher, which I discovered to be overflowing. Immediately, I called the super. "What did you put in it?" she asked. "Was it dishwashing detergent?" Dude, obviously.
Or was it?
When Anthony & Manny reappeared, I sheepishly confessed that I just discovered I'd been using Tide pods in my dishwasher. Like, for a month. So, um, no wonder my dishes never seem clean & occasionally have a lot of soap scum left over. Anthony reappeared with a fancy vacuum that sucked all the soapy water out of the dishwasher & even put a dishwashing soap pod in for me before he left.
"Don't worry," Manny assured me. "We won't tell the super."
They almost walked in on me in the nude & now they're keeping a dirty (literally) secret for me. I feel like we're friends now, don't you?
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