The Sound of Water
In related news, my toilet’s been running for over a week.
Well, that’s not entirely true. My toilet’s been kicking up a fuss on and off since the end of June, starting with some trickling noises simmering away, then moving on to running, which was temporarily fixed by a replacement for our building’s regular Super. Which esteemed personage claims to have been attempting to order the necessary part, but has run afoul of the bureaucracy of the housing company. When she finally did get a part two months after the original repair request, it was wrong part and the waiting continued. As there was just mild hissing noises and occasional trickling emanating from the toilet, I didn’t care much. Or rather, I have conditioned myself not care much, because that just adds stress and wouldn’t make the alleged implacable bureaucracy move any faster, so it’d be wasted stress.
Last Friday – no, not the Friday last week, the one before that, October 29 – my toilet started running. Quite loudly. In fact, it sounded like a babbling brook had developed in my bathroom, audible everywhere except my bedroom and this was when I discovered that contrary to expectations, having this sound in an apartment well off the ground floor is not conducive to acquiring a sense of serenity. On the contrary – it adds an incredible amount of anxiety and I think I figured out why.
Although my brain knows that the toilet won’t overflow, there’s part of me that constantly believes it will
There’s going to be a flood!
And so on. This conversation isn’t happening on a conscious level, but going on in a barely perceptible part of my brain more or less constantly. And it’s just a tad stressful.
On Wednesday, the Super came by to try to make it shut up temporarily, instead causing the toilet to change from a babbling brook to a constant stream, as if someone were standing over it with an inexhaustible, bottomless watering can and this turned out to be even more nerve-racking. So on Friday, the Super’s day off, I sneakily asked the guy who’d made a temporarily shut up for several weeks this summer to drop by and see if he could do it again. And bless him, he did. Now it only trickles and simmers again and I can only hear that when I’m actually in the bathroom. I was so grateful I even forgave him for calling me ‘dear’ all the time.
The serenity fountain, however, is off the list.
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Haha. I must admit I thought you were going to say the sound of running water made you want to wee all the time. That's what it would do to me! 😛
It's only serenity if it's serenading you when you can make it stop when you want. Glad that guy helped!
Once I had a job that included waiting on hold quite often for much too long, and one hold message was water running… usually when it was late for my break…