Drying Out

• Pieces Falling Into Place
• A Week Since I Drank
• To Play More Hours Or Get A Job Still The Looming Choice
  

The maintenance guy came and unplugged the drain of my air conditioner in an operation using a "shop vac" which I could have done myself, 5 weeks ago. He gave me the tired old spiel about not turning off the valve that makes water course through the unit; and makes a lot of noise. Trying to blame the situation on someone else seems to be the knee-jerk reaction of an entire culture of people. I know that, if I turn the water flow off and then the unit tries to run, it could burn out the pump; and so I shut the entire unit off when I do so. Try explaining that to someone who's knowledge about the units is limited to "If you turn the valve off, you will burn the pump out. This is the same guy who at first told me that the puddle of water between the rug and the unit was "coming from the rug." How the rug was getting wet, was not explained. Now Harold doesn't have to leap a puddle then walk across an empty shelf of a bookcase and then jump from there to the bed to avoid getting his paws wet every time.

I had placed the keyboard in a spot where he had to walk over it every time, so as to make his trips back and forth from his food dish to the bed musical, at least.

What amazes me is how the staff here have been throwing "narratives" at me: "It's from the rain" "Um, it started during the drought..."

"It's from a leaking unit in the apartment above you"
"Um, that guy got evicted a month ago..."

"It's coming from your wet rug" (that one speaks for itself).
And then there was Jr. telling me I needed to cut a hole in a certain spot in the wall and pour bleach down a certain hose.

At one point the new assistant building manager, a masked up heavy-set woman of color, whom I have seen around lunch time, waddling from her car into the building, holding a large bag of take-out food, overheard me complaining about the situation to the person sitting at the front desk and claimed that the problem had already been fixed (and so, I was lying, basically?).
Were these people trying to avoid having to do any work by insisting that there was no problem, and that the water that was soaking my shoes as I walked around my apartment was not there because they said it wasn't? That is some kind of "critical thinking" taken to the extreme.

I've decided to write my own "narrative."

I could have resorted to contacting the Housing Authority and mentioned the magic word "mold" to them, whereupon the staff may have had to suspend their disbelief that there was an actual problem, then do something. But, I bend over backwards to not be a thorn in their sides. There are mentally ill residents that they have to deal with on almost a daily basis; who threaten to withhold their rent payments over every little issue. The convenience to them of having that as extra spending money might also be a factor in their grievances.