The Cursed Apartment Strikes Again

On Monday my apartment had another flood. I had to call maintenance because an inch of water appeared on my bathroom floor, and before I knew it a three foot hole was being jack hammered in my floor.

I’ve just come to expect flooding in my apartment now. If I wake up tomorrow and I was floating in the living room, I would probably hit the snooze button and go back to bed. But at least now people are starting to believe me that my apartment is cursed. Even the mean leasing office manager has suddenly turned from bitchy ice queen, we-have-no-legal-responsibility to Suzie shower-me-with-cash-and-prizes. I got this concerned call at work from her apologizing for my apartment being cursed, to which I responded, “No big deal, just don’t anger the demon any more.” She then gave me five days rent, the money in damages I’d claimed from the last apartment disaster, and later the permission to book my own hotel room for the night paid for by Cursed Apartment Management.

When I came back to my apartment the next day, I stood outside the door a minute before I went in and half expected my dining table to me stacked on top of my couch and my bed to be propped up against the wall, like it had been the day before and the office manager said “You don’t sleep like that?” when I complained about it. But instead there was brand spankin new carpet and all my furniture was neatly placed back where it was! All the things I’d had on floor were put in boxed and bags in my living room. I’m thinking of just leaving it all that way and just moving out, since everything’s already packed for me.

But now I have this awesome new fluffy carpet which I laid on for a while and ate dinner off of and very nearly slept on. So now I feel like I’m in a new house or something and have made a point to walk around every square inch of it so my foot prints will be the first ones it ever knows. However, I did find that there’s still a cemented hole in my bathroom, but I hardly bat an eye at this point and just straddle it while I’m brushing my teeth.

But the best part about this whole experience was the hotel room I got for one night. (Don’t ask me how I’ve managed to stay so positive about all of this, I think I’m maxed out my use of the words “fucking flood” and therefore now must revert to just accepting it.) But after work on Tuesday when I saw the state of my apartment, I stormed over to the leasing office, prepared to whirl in in my business coat and bust out my best bitchy lines, only to find that they were more then happy to pay for a hotel room for me. The manager on the phone said “Even if it’s like $200 just get it.” OK, thanks for that.. Can you please give me the number to the nearest five-star hotel with room-service and over-priced valet parking? Thank you..

But actually I was left to my own volition as far as finding a hotel. So after discovering that there aren’t many five-star hotels in downtown near my work and that the Downtown Westgate only charges $12.50 for a bottle of water from the mini bar, I finally found the Westin Hotel, which looked adequately fancy on its website and assured me that I would be completely gouged by the mini bar prices. Excellent.

After dropping off my dusty civic at the $25 valet, (“You can just move the Starburst wrappers off the seat, and I swear, that sticky orange stuff on the steering wheel is not from me.”) I checked into my room. Damn, was this the coolest hotel room ever! The bed was the size of my entire apartment back home. Everything was so pretty I wanted to move in. I considered calling the rental office, in between the third and fourth courses of my room service meal, and telling them that if my apartment was still going to need work, that I would be ok with staying another night or two. It would be a big inconvenience, but I could work it out. Hey wait, did they forget the chocolate covered strawberries!?

I took a shower soon after I got there, which became the first of perhaps three showers in a four hour period, because it was so cool! It had like four shower heads pointed in different directions and heated floors. And instead of my apartments sputtery shower and luke-warm temperature, this one was hot, pressured and didn’t give you the sinking feeling that you were showering in your upstairs neighbor’s toilet water.

I got take out and proceeded to eat it while sitting cross-legged on the white linen bed sheets of my enormous bed and watching reruns of the X Files on my flat screen TV. But don’t worry, I used the white, goose-down, posturpedic pillow as a table… I’m not tacky enough to eat straight off the sheets! Later I dropped a chocolate somewhere in the sheets and shrugged it off, happy that for once someone else will be scrubbing the chocolate stains out of sheets instead of me.
A few more showers later, I realized I couldn’t just stay up all night staring at my nice hotel room, so I went to bed. I was worried I’d be lost in the enormity of it, since I took up about one-sixteenth of it.

I also discovered that my valet deal included “in and out privileges”, which I fully intended to take advantage of. So when I went to get dinner, I turned in my valet ticket, made them bring the car up, then put my umbrella in it, and gave the keys back. It was awesome. I did this a few more times just for sport. But then the next morning, when I actually needed my security badge from my car to get to work, I think they caught on and the valet kid took forever.
After work I had to go get my car for the last time from the valet (I think it’d been spit on) and then the dream was over.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m back to my hum-drum life in my lame apartment and I need to go take a tepid shower. And unless I concentrate, I could very well end up falling in the hole next to the toilet.

Someday we’ll be together again, Westin Room 1217. Someday.