plunger

I once heard a zen saying which I have since tried to adopt into my daily routine:

Anger without rage

I admit I have a tendency to fly off the handle on rare occassions. And by rare I mean frequent. I realize that getting worked up about little things is a vast waste of energy; therefore I am truly making an effort to be chill about many things. Anger without rage. Say it with me people.

It seems that every day I am being tested on my ability to keep things in perspective. Today is no exception. Perhaps this has happened to you and you may be able to sympathize with me. Perhaps not, but I shall tell my story anyway. Because I want to.

I woke up this morning and went to the bathroom to get ready and shower. I was very unpleasantly surprised to discover the last user of the restroom had failed to flush the toilet. Ewwwww. I tried to flush. Only to realize that the toilet was clogged, and the person who clogged it left it that way.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have 3 male roommates. Two of them are out of town. I mean, I'm no Carmen Sandiego or anything, but I figured out this riddle pretty quickly. The remaining roommate clogged the toilet. So where was he? Not around.

I became more aggravated upon realizing we have no plunger. So in my bathrobe, I went around knocking on random people's doors in my apartment building, until I found a kind soul willing to lend us their plunger. As I took the plunger and headed back to my apartment, I saw the AWOL roommate climbing up the stairs. He looked at me and said "Is everything OK?"

I asked him if the toilet was clogged when he used it this morning. Now, here is the moment where my patience was truly tested. He could have just responded, "Yeah, I'm sorry, I clogged it and ran away hoping you wouldn't figure out it was me who did that." Instead, he said to me:

"It wasn't clogged when I used it last night, but it was clogged when I used it this morning, so I don't know who clogged it."

First of all, let's analyze the statement. Are you in agreement about the serious absence of logic? Second, why are you trying to evade blame? Even if you didn't clog it, why wouldn't you have the common decency to try and unclog it? Instead, he left me to discover the unflushed (and unflushable) toilet. In addition, he stepped out of the apartment for a while only to return. Why didn't he think of purchasing a plunger in that time?

I am proud to say I didn't even come close to yelling at him or flying off my broom handle (hee hee). I unclogged the toilet then went about my bidness, know what I'm sayin?

I must admit I am quite frustrated with my living situation, though. Everyone is really nice, but as I mentioned earlier, some of them are not very clean and nobody takes any responsibility. I feel I am stuck between a rock and a hard place since I am very clean and responsible. If my roommate's don't clean, I do it anyway because I am a neat freak. And if the toilet is clogged, it's a good bet that at some point I will be the one to fix the problem. I am adept at playing the mommy role, but it bothers me when I have to assume that role for people I feel are taking advantage of my personality.

But what can you do? My old roommate will be returning from study abroad in a month. She is a nice roommate. She is even more of a mommy than I am.

I will lament the fact that my apartment has no AC until the end of summer. I came into the office today, so that I could work on a computer to take care of some personal work in a comfortable, temperature controlled environment. With a toilet that flushes.