LIFE WAS LIKE A CHINESE FINGER TRAP, ONLY ONE FINGER WAS MY PENIS

That's going to be on my headstone - unless I opt for cremation, in which case keychains with that phrase inscribed will be handed out to the four people who may or may not show up at my funeral.

Last night I remained at work to patch a hole in a bathroom wall, 3 feet by 3 feet. This hole was behind both a toilet and a bathroom vanity. So, I had to cut circles for the pipes in the sheetrock, twist myself into peculiar shapes, and slot the section in through a particularly awkward angle. It was great, yoga without all the hot girlies around to distract you and make you feel all googy. I've never done yoga in my entire life, by the way, so that was a lie. Although I do feel googy around the girlies.

After many clever and inventive compound curse words I finished the task, came home, where I promptly ignored my blog. Since the apartment was scheduled to be cleaned this morning, and the move-in scheduled for Saturday morning, time was of the essence. I arose two hours earlier than usual, showered, shaved, ate a little something (because you should always eat a little something), and I don't remember any of it because I think I was still in REM sleep the whole time. The apartment was in the building next to mine. It's both a blessing and a curse that I live in the complex I do business with - the good things are I can sleep right up until five minutes before I have to go to work, leave whenever I want during the day, and set my own weekly work hours. THE BAD THING IS I NEVER GET TO DO ANY OF THAT. I make up for all this by sneaking up to my abode various times throughout the day to have a sip of soda, and maybe a little something to eat (because you should always eat a little something). This is why you might see comments from me during the middle of the day every now and again.

So I walk over to the building, tool in hand - hey, whatta ya know, that's how I spend my evenings, too - only to find the patch still damp. Something isn't right. You give any patching compound in the world twelve hours and it will dry. I used my razor-edged deduction skills and came to the conclusion that this was a result of the carpet cleaners. They'd steamed the carpet sometime after I'd left yesterday, and you could feel the moisture still heavy in the air.

I had many other tasks to perform today, so I set about them and reminded myself to check the patch later today. Fridays are a complete waste of time for me. Apartments are generally rented for Friday or Saturday morning, so my time is spent dashing about touching them up, last minute polish like covering waterstains which bled through as the paint dried, caulking and painting shoemold which was replaced, sanding and painting patches which had to dry, etc. The maintenance crew comes in after I've painted and 'fixes' things, which is completely ass-backwards if you ask me but no one ever does. I am left to return, paintbrush in hand, upwards of three different times to patch and paint whatever they've 'fixed'. There are long, fuming periods of waiting, for the stray piece of shoemolding, or new towel rack which had somehow been overlooked.

After lunch I returned to THE NEVERENDING APARTMENT, and surprise! Still wet! So, desperate to finish this job before I had to help the new tenants unload their truck, I decided to heat things up a bit. I turned the air conditioning on the highest heat setting, and turned the bathroom heater up until it glowed bright red. The bathroom heaters are the electric type which resemble a stove element affixed to your wall, and that's just the thing you need to accidentally back your naked wet ass cheeks into. I left the apartment this way for three more hours.

Again - still damp, although forming a dry crust over the top. I was forced to ask one of the maintenance guys to cut me a key, because I'd have to stay after they left. I finished my other duties, went home and took a short nap, then returned to find -

Yeah.

I had no choice. Using the lightest touch I was capable of, I sanded off the burred edges of my patching work, then carefully painted over the wall. It occurred to me at that moment why the patch was still wet: The source leak, the one the workmen had cut this 3x3 hunk of wall out and taken almost a whole day to fix, was still there.
A microscopic hole somewhere along the pipes, leaking just enough so that no puddles form, but keeping the wall damp evermore.

And now I have to go back AGAIN early tomorrow morning, to put a second coat of paint on this patch which is never ever going to completely dry. In a week (or less), I'll have to go back and patch the hole once more after it's been 'fixed' a second time, only this trip I will have the added bonus of angry tenants over my shoulder blaming me for the whole ordeal (that's what they do, every time). All because some other dope didn't do his job in the correct fashion. If it were up to me I would make whoever was in charge of repairing that leak stand there with his finger over the hole for the entire length of the new tenant's lease. Get thirsty, take your finger off the hole. Hungry? There'll be plenty of mold to chew on.

Sometimes it seems like my entire business consists of camouflaging someone else's fuckups.

Anyway, that's a small part of the reason why there haven't been a lot of updates recently, and why the ones I've squeezed in have been fairly weak. When I'm tired my already subpar writing ability drops below the Earth's crust. I'll get around to both Survivor Updates I owe you tomorrow, put up a new poll and tally the results of the old ones, and maybe (maybe) there'll be time for some other inanity as well. I finally have a day off.

Now I'm going over to Jim Treacher's blog and do a little catching up. He's been on a roll lately.