Happy Women’s Day! No hot water, no heating, and a flooded building!
This is how my March 8th started. Sunshine outside? Water in the basement! Beautiful flower bouquets outside? A “bouquet” of things underwater in the basement…
MY BUILDING
For a while now, the building where I live has been suffering from a lack of hot water and, sometimes, even heating. But ice-cold water affects us all, making everything we once took pride in shrink. And by pride, I mean the pride of living in the very heart of Bucharest.
From spending dozens of minutes with the water running, waiting for it to get at least lukewarm, to heating water in a pot just to wash – this has been our life lately. (Man, I’m having childhood flashbacks!)
Discussions, disputes, investigations, and requests started in hopes of figuring out where the hell this hot water problem was coming from.
Well, we wanted the hot water so badly that we got more than enough! Except… it came in the basement of the building!
When I woke up on Saturday, happy that Women’s Day came with sunshine, the water in the basement was knee-deep! No rubber boots could handle it. Maybe those fishing waders would, but it turns out we don’t have any fishermen in our building…
Two hours later, thanks to a pump, the water receded below knee level.
I go down to the basement and start mentally taking inventory of the things I have in one corner, placed on pallets: boxes with old documents, suitcases – lots of suitcases – which, although covered with bags to protect them from basement dust, are clearly soaked now. Christmas decorations, tools, planters, paint cans, and bags of drywall, unused blinds… and I keep wondering what else I’ve stored there, piled up.
A sort of emergency command center has already formed in the basement, and people are actually trying to do something. But what can you do in a sea of floating belongings inside a flooded basement???
It’s so warm in here that I feel like calling all the neighbors to come down and take a dip in the warm water. Filthy as hell, but warm!!! We could inaugurate our Basement Pool. We grab the wet folding chairs from one neighbor’s storage unit, the floating portable cooler from another, buy some beer, I’ll throw in my suitcases as inflatable mattresses, and we’ll spend the weekend in thermal waters… oops, I mean thermoenergetic waters 🙂
GIRL POWER
I am known as someone who buys all the useless stuff in the world 🙂 (I admit, I enjoy doing it.) Some of them sit for years in my drawers or in my car’s trunk, waiting for the day they finally become useful. And guess what? That day has come for two of them.
I go to my car and rummage through it. First, I pull out some elastic cords to secure some part of the pump that’s draining the water. Great, I’ve solved at least one problem…
Then I start thinking about how to save some of my things. And suddenly, a light bulb goes off!
Years ago, in Venice, I bought these long “socks” made of thick plastic, which the locals sell to tourists to wear when the city floods. I rush upstairs, dig through my drawer full of junk, find the sealed package, and head back down to our very own Venice in the basement. Even though the package says size 43-46 and I wear a 39, I can’t fit my shoes inside them, so I take them off and put the plastic socks directly on my bare feet.
It’s really hard to get to my little storage spot, wading through all sorts of floating objects: pieces of wood, empty bags, buckets, sticks, even a beer bottle… and a few giant cockroaches.
I feel like I’m in a Bucharest Titanic. I wonder… is the Heart of the Ocean necklace floating around here too?
The first things I try to grab are my fabric suitcases – my “light” suitcases. But I get a shock: I can barely lift them! I realize they have partially filled with water, which is why they feel unbearably heavy.
With great effort, I hoist them up and wade back through the water to the exit, like a true Nicu Vlad of flooded suitcases. A kind neighbor helps me carry them up to the building’s lobby.
I make this trip several times, which prompts my inner voice to say: “Mladin, what the hell were you thinking buying so many suitcases on your travels?!?”
It’s incredibly hot in here, thanks to the flooded basement. I’m sweating like a pig.
A few crates containing Christmas decorations and tools are floating. So is a bucket. The empty planters are drifting wildly through the water…
The only things that haven’t budged are two stacks of boxes. The ones at the bottom, made of cardboard (!) are soaking in water. They contain old documents. Fantastic. Just fantastic…
Above them, more boxes with various items and some smaller suitcases, all stacked up. Here, everything looks fine! So I don’t touch them. I just hope the base doesn’t get so soggy that everything collapses like a game of Jenga.
My Venetian “socks” are holding up well, but as I shuffle through the warm, filthy water, the “waves” start soaking my shorts. Water drips from the pipes above as I pass under them. Ugh, forget the Venetian socks – I need a gondola and a gondolier’s hat!
It doesn’t even cross my mind for a second that wading through this water might be dangerous if something electric is submerged. God, I’m such an idiot!!!
I carry the first batch of six suitcases into my apartment. By the time I reach my door, the entire hallway is filled with the water draining from them.
I cram them onto my tiny balcony, wide open, hoping they’ll dry in the sun. The ones that drew the short straw stay inside – they won’t see sunlight until tomorrow…
I grab a mop and clean up the mess I made in the hallway. What Women’s Day? Today feels like May 1st, Labor Day!!!
I go back for the next batch. I’m drenched in sweat. And the worst part? The water is shut off in the entire building!!! Both hot and cold.
There’s everything in my fridge – except water. Think I can shower with Pepsi??
For now, I wash my hands with rubbing alcohol. At least I’ll have peace of mind that I didn’t pick up some nasty germs from all that basement filth. As for the rest… I just spray on some perfume to cover up any questionable odors.
And then, something serious happens: I feel it coming!
What do you mean, what?!? Number 2. The big job. The call of nature. The inevitable. Call it whatever you want.
Oh, crap. What the hell do I do?!?
When you know there’s no running water until the next day, trust me, you don’t even want to go. But, well… there’s no escape.
So I quickly jump in my car, wearing clean clothes over my sweat-soaked body from the basement labor, and drive straight to the mall nearby 🙂
Among all the elegant women out celebrating March 8th, spoiled by their husbands or boyfriends, here I am – Slavemaster Isaura, fresh off the sinking Titanic, on a desperate hunt for the nearest bathroom 🙂
Happy Women’s Day to me!
