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So I missed something somewhere, or maybe it was my landlord. Anyway, the deal is this: nearly a month ago the water heater in the apartment upstairs sprung a leak into my apartment. Most of the water ran into my bathroom. The clean-up crew ripped up the linolium floor and cut huge holes in the drywall to get it dry before mold started forming. This is all good, right? I thought it was GREAT, especially since the landlord decided to replace the crappy, stained linolium in the bathroom with actual, for-reals tile. Score!
Then last night as I was arriving home from work, my landlady and inoffensive but unfriendly neighbor were chattily unloading stacks of tile and grout mix from the back of her Volvo and piling them in front of my door. They seemed shocked to see me, but did scooch a pile over so the door would open. Thanks. Then the following conversation occurred:
Inoffensive but Unfriendly Neighbor [in far too chipper a tone]: Hey! How's it going?!?
Me [confusedly, as he scampers away, not paying attention to my reply]: Fine. You?
Landlady: Oh, hi Amy. I didn't expect you to be here. [at 5:30ish on a workday?]
Me: Yep, just getting home from work.
Landlady: Well, great, I forgot to call you! Steve will be here tomorrow about 8:30.
Me: Super. I'm guessing Steve is the tile dude?
Landlady: Oh, yes. Sorry. Anyway, he'll be here about 8:30 in the morning. That's okay right? [no pause for an answer] So make sure to have everything you'll need out of the bathroom!
Me: What?
Landlady: Well, the tile process takes three days. Tomorrow he will pull up the toilet and lay out the tile, and Friday he'll grout it. [I'm guessing the third day is to let the grout set, and hopefully replace the toilet. On the Saturday of a holiday weekend.]
Me: What? When you told me that the house would be torn up for three days for this process, you didn't mention that I wouldn't be able to live here during that time.
Landlady [baffled]: The apartment won't be unliveable, you just won't be able to go in the bathroom!
And here is where my head explodes. In a one bathroom apartment, what part of "can't walk on the bathroom floor to use the non-existant toilet" equals "livable"? For tonight I'm going to stay at my 'rents, but I am NOT impressed. Am I crazy for not understanding this situation? I mean, I did tell the landlady I'd rather have a tile floor than crappy linolium when she suggested the upgrade. But am I stupid for not realizing that in agreeing to this improvement, I was also agreeing to ostensibly move out for three days? Obviously, there was a communication breakdown somewhere, but seriously. Does she think I'm going to shit in a bucket?
Unrelatedly, OMG, I love McSweeney's.
