Idiosycratic Life

WARNING: BEWARE OF DOOG*
*spelling intentional

My home repair savvy, in fact, my computer repair and camera repair savvy also, essentially follows the same philosophy-
1.) turn it off and then back on again.
2.) If that doesn’t work, push a reset button if the thing- appliance, computer, light meter, et al- has one.
3.) If that doesn’t work, look closely at the expensive thing. Try to do whatever you think it needs: see #1 and #2. Do not force anything. Ever.
4.) If that fails- for Macintosh computers and Nikon camera equipment, (and dead car batteries, available in the Greater NY area only), call Luke. For PC computers, call Scott. For decomposing squirrels floating at the bottom of a narsty trash can that has been frozen solid and only recently thawed for the first time in three months, call Stephen.

My garbage disposal broke last Friday night, right when everyone who fixes such non-emergency things in my apartment complex has gone off duty for two days. Unfortunately, I had just spit the sour, inedible parts of a pomegranate down the drain. Sorry if that image grosses you out, I live alone, and eating meals standing by the sink just make sense sometimes.

So I flipped the switch a few times. Nope. I crawled until the sink, shoved the 300 or so plastic bags to one side (I swear, they’re reproducing on their own down there), hit my head on a pipe, but managed to locate the little red button that resets the garbage disposal. (In a stroke of pure genius, I discovered the presence of the magic red button on our garbage disposal in the apartment I shared with Jo and Jill for the 2nd half of our junior year.) That didn’t do it this time.

So I called the maintenance people to come fix it. However, I had this ... *concern* that the problem with the garbage disposal may have something to do with the teeny, tiny fact that I have been making mosaics lately, and um, measuring out powdered concrete grout over the sink and um, washing out the grouty buckets in that sink. Heh... hee hee... heh, ahem.

Anyway, Rolando the Maintenance Guy came when I was at therapy (thera-PIE!) this morning. I didn’t think they would get to me so soon, honestly, so I didn’t put Bella in her crate before I left. So When I came home, there was a note on my door that said, and this is verbatim, no typos: “Very big doog. Call office.”

Doog! DOOG! Ha ha ha ha ha ha. This kills me! :) I am not making fun of him in a mean way; I’m really not. Rolando is a very sweet man in his late 60s. His grandmother was named Angela, and he always greets me with an enthusiastic “Buenos dias, AHN-hay-la!”

But still, seeing the word “doog” made me think of the early 90s sitcom- Doogie Howser, M.D.- you know? Vinny Del Pino, (Max Casella), always called Neil Patrick Harris’s character “Doog” for short.

So, the note on my door, written on a work order to fix the garbage disposal, saying he didn’t want to go in without me there because there is a “very big Doog” in my apartment makes me imagine a Jolly Green Giant-sized Neil Patrick Harris sitting in my living room, hunched over clasping his knees with his head bent against the ceiling, preventing thieves and well-meaning garbage disposal fixers from entering my apartment.

(As it turns out, the garbage disposal just needed to have a screw tightened. The problem was strictly non-grout related. Yay! :)

Now, if only I could prevent the other funny, furry creature in my apartment from sitting on top of the fridge and pushing the glass bead magnets, loving crafted in anxiety induced “Oh my God, I’m a non-certified substitute teacher in training and the only person I know there is Creepy Shannon Edwards in a green blazer” bouts of insomnia. It would be one thing if he just left on them on the kitchen floor or kicked them under the fridge so I could pick them up or slide them out with a yardstick, but nooooo....

He has to carry them all over the apartment, setting them next to the keyboard as I type or putting them in his water dish (I don’t know, don’t ask.) So, dear readers, any thoughts on what to do about the caat? :)