Water, water, everywhere...
Life has a funny way of turning around and biting one in the ass, doesn't it?
Cases in point:
Last week, a colleague left her mobile phone behind in an auto. Had a hearty time laughing at her.
Last night, I learnt that another friend, one who has a penchant for losing mobile phones, had lost yet another; making it four phones lost in the shortish time that I've known him. Had an even heartier time laughing at him.
At around 1AM the following morning (this morning), the tummy started rumbling. I staggered to the loo and proceeded to "do my business". I then heard, from the bathroom in the flat above us, the sounds of somebody repeatedly trying the flush while cursing fluently. Okay, so there was no running water then. I, luckily, had a full bucket standing by. Did try the taps to see if we had the same problem; we did.
Just before I tottered back to bed, I left post-it notes warning my flatmates that there was no running water.
Later this morning, one flatmate (FM1) woke me up at around 6AM. He does usually wake me up at around that time, at my insistence; although, normally, he calls my name out just once before rushing for his yoga workout. Today, he kept calling my name out until I sat awake. I did so and looked around towards him.
Friggin' hell! The entire apartment was flooded! There was this house-shaped puddle of water a whole centimeter deep!
I remember saying nothing other than, "F*ck! F***ck! F*******ck!" for the first 20 minutes of my morning while I roamed slish-sloshed about the house. Apparently, I had forgotten to turn one tap off the previous night and, when the water supply had been reconnected sometime during the night, the building's water tank emptied itself into the house through that tap.
A whole massive load of our stuff was soaked. We had to move all sorts of things out into the biggish verandah to dry.
Now there is no drainage anywhere in the house except for the bathrooms; the doors of which have a slab of marble over the threshold to ensure that water does not come out into the house. Thanks to these threshold-slabs, we could not push all that water back into the bathrooms (Note: This was just one of the smaller ironies of the day, as it turned out).
So FM1 and I picked up a bunch of bedsheets and started soaking up whatever water we could. No matter how many times we wrung those sheets out into buckets, we could not make any impact on the amount of water in the house. FM2 had woken up by this time. We knew that there was no way we could all go to the office with the house in this state; and there was also the case of all the stuff lying outside, we didn't want all that stuff stolen, too. So I called my manager from a PCO (why a PCO? Read on) and explained the situation to her. She thankfully agreed to allow me to skip the first half of the day. Our arrangement was that FM2 would replace me on chowkidaar/kaamwali duty at lunchtime.
So FM1 and FM2 left for the office. FM3 had woken up by this time and, after a little chat, he left for work too. I then proceeded to pick up all the scattered belongings (flotsam, now) and dump them into the verandah, on to the sofa, spare stools, spare chairs, any dry area I could find. I then dispensed with the bedsheets (they were too frigging huge) and picked up a bunch of mopping cloths and a towel (FM2's. Shhhh) and used these to try and scoop all that water into buckets. It was backbreaking work and I was at it non-stop till about 12.30, when I ultimately gave up. Had reduced the water level across the house to about 3mm by then.
Luckily, the maid came in at about 3.30 and swished the whole place up. Of course, by that time, evaporation had done almost all the work for her.
FM2, meanwhile, is due for a(nother) trip to the USA, and was apparently facing some ticket/forex complication at the office. He couldn't replace me at lunchtime. By around 4.30, my manager had called a couple of times reminding me of some teensy-weensy extremely urgent deliverables. So I chucked the maid out of the house, chucked all our stuff back into the house, locked up and rushed to the office.
The mattresses are still all soaked. Looks like we'll be sleeping on the floor tonight. Thank God for my sleeping bag.
Anyhow, you would be wondering how all this stuff is connected to life biting one in the ass. Here's the kicker: When I sleep, I set an alarm for the following morning on my mobile phone and set it down next to my mattress. On the ground.
Yes. My phone became one of those many pieces of flotsam. Now it does not work, not at all. The good friend who has the tendancy for losing mobile phones found this extremely hilarious. He will continue to find it hilarious, I guess, until my fist finds his nose.
All calls for the day were made and received on FM3's WLL phone.
Other than the mobile phone, this 160GB external HDD I have is fucked too, I think. There goes my entire movie collection, my entire F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Joey, South Park collections, my entire chocolate collection, my bunch of files from IIMK. Scratch that, the HDD is foine; just foine! :D
I am just zapped that I didn't bring the laptop home from work that night -- if that had gotten wet, I could really have committed suicide!
I did take some photographs of the lake-house (or should I call it the house-lake?) through the day. The snaps are still on my camera (which, thankfully, did not get wet). Will upload them (on Monday, I guess).
And now, my to-dos:
1. Buy a new phone. Multiple-mobile-phone-losing-good-friend, when are you going to buy yours?
2. (Can't think of anything else.)
---
Yes, watching a live feed of Phil Jaques and Brett Lee clinically dismantling the South African cricket team did indeed provide a silver lining to a day that was otherwise madness.
---
Update: Photographs [ here ]
Cases in point:
Last week, a colleague left her mobile phone behind in an auto. Had a hearty time laughing at her.
Last night, I learnt that another friend, one who has a penchant for losing mobile phones, had lost yet another; making it four phones lost in the shortish time that I've known him. Had an even heartier time laughing at him.
At around 1AM the following morning (this morning), the tummy started rumbling. I staggered to the loo and proceeded to "do my business". I then heard, from the bathroom in the flat above us, the sounds of somebody repeatedly trying the flush while cursing fluently. Okay, so there was no running water then. I, luckily, had a full bucket standing by. Did try the taps to see if we had the same problem; we did.
Just before I tottered back to bed, I left post-it notes warning my flatmates that there was no running water.
Later this morning, one flatmate (FM1) woke me up at around 6AM. He does usually wake me up at around that time, at my insistence; although, normally, he calls my name out just once before rushing for his yoga workout. Today, he kept calling my name out until I sat awake. I did so and looked around towards him.
Friggin' hell! The entire apartment was flooded! There was this house-shaped puddle of water a whole centimeter deep!
I remember saying nothing other than, "F*ck! F***ck! F*******ck!" for the first 20 minutes of my morning while I roamed slish-sloshed about the house. Apparently, I had forgotten to turn one tap off the previous night and, when the water supply had been reconnected sometime during the night, the building's water tank emptied itself into the house through that tap.
A whole massive load of our stuff was soaked. We had to move all sorts of things out into the biggish verandah to dry.
Now there is no drainage anywhere in the house except for the bathrooms; the doors of which have a slab of marble over the threshold to ensure that water does not come out into the house. Thanks to these threshold-slabs, we could not push all that water back into the bathrooms (Note: This was just one of the smaller ironies of the day, as it turned out).
So FM1 and I picked up a bunch of bedsheets and started soaking up whatever water we could. No matter how many times we wrung those sheets out into buckets, we could not make any impact on the amount of water in the house. FM2 had woken up by this time. We knew that there was no way we could all go to the office with the house in this state; and there was also the case of all the stuff lying outside, we didn't want all that stuff stolen, too. So I called my manager from a PCO (why a PCO? Read on) and explained the situation to her. She thankfully agreed to allow me to skip the first half of the day. Our arrangement was that FM2 would replace me on chowkidaar/kaamwali duty at lunchtime.
So FM1 and FM2 left for the office. FM3 had woken up by this time and, after a little chat, he left for work too. I then proceeded to pick up all the scattered belongings (flotsam, now) and dump them into the verandah, on to the sofa, spare stools, spare chairs, any dry area I could find. I then dispensed with the bedsheets (they were too frigging huge) and picked up a bunch of mopping cloths and a towel (FM2's. Shhhh) and used these to try and scoop all that water into buckets. It was backbreaking work and I was at it non-stop till about 12.30, when I ultimately gave up. Had reduced the water level across the house to about 3mm by then.
Luckily, the maid came in at about 3.30 and swished the whole place up. Of course, by that time, evaporation had done almost all the work for her.
FM2, meanwhile, is due for a(nother) trip to the USA, and was apparently facing some ticket/forex complication at the office. He couldn't replace me at lunchtime. By around 4.30, my manager had called a couple of times reminding me of some teensy-weensy extremely urgent deliverables. So I chucked the maid out of the house, chucked all our stuff back into the house, locked up and rushed to the office.
The mattresses are still all soaked. Looks like we'll be sleeping on the floor tonight. Thank God for my sleeping bag.
Anyhow, you would be wondering how all this stuff is connected to life biting one in the ass. Here's the kicker: When I sleep, I set an alarm for the following morning on my mobile phone and set it down next to my mattress. On the ground.
Yes. My phone became one of those many pieces of flotsam. Now it does not work, not at all. The good friend who has the tendancy for losing mobile phones found this extremely hilarious. He will continue to find it hilarious, I guess, until my fist finds his nose.
All calls for the day were made and received on FM3's WLL phone.
Other than the mobile phone, this 160GB external HDD I have is fucked too, I think. There goes my entire movie collection, my entire F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Joey, South Park collections, my entire chocolate collection, my bunch of files from IIMK. Scratch that, the HDD is foine; just foine! :D
I am just zapped that I didn't bring the laptop home from work that night -- if that had gotten wet, I could really have committed suicide!
I did take some photographs of the lake-house (or should I call it the house-lake?) through the day. The snaps are still on my camera (which, thankfully, did not get wet). Will upload them (on Monday, I guess).
And now, my to-dos:
1. Buy a new phone. Multiple-mobile-phone-losing-good-friend, when are you going to buy yours?
2. (Can't think of anything else.)
---
Yes, watching a live feed of Phil Jaques and Brett Lee clinically dismantling the South African cricket team did indeed provide a silver lining to a day that was otherwise madness.
---
Update: Photographs [ here ]