The Ghosts In My Bathroom

The other night we had a little gathering – mostly girls, a sporadic smattering of guys (the odds are never in our favor), too much sugary food, everyone holding hands in the dark around a solitary lit candle – you know the drill: typical spooky Friday night business.  

As we were chatting about boring grown-up things like dentistry and hummus, I heard an unfamiliar trickling, almost splashing sound.  Ummm? Upon further investigation (literally me just walking over to my bathroom), what do we find?  Water inexplicably POURING out of my ceiling through the vent.  Definitely NOT typical Friday night business.   

WHYYYYY was this happening? 

You know that song from the Lego movie, “Everything is Awesome?”  Sometimes I enact artistic license and sing it instead as “Everything is Stupid,” because that applies to my life more liberally.  Like in this moment.  

I felt completely powerless, like unto that time Laura was sick to her stomach with ferocious abdominal pain and all I could do was flitter about uselessly,  offering her juice.  I grabbed our stockpot, the beautiful stockpot Sandy T bought us from IKEA so we could make pounds of tortellini with reckless pasta abandon, and ran to the bathroom, holding it up with outstretched arms to catch the mysterious bathroom ceiling water.  But it wasn’t just a steady stream, it was spraying all over.  Guests supplemented my stockpot with various blender components and the surprisingly useful stack of extra towels I typically reserve for over-nighters.  

Wow, great party, Katherine! PS. No one use the bathroom!!

I ran upstairs to check with our neighbors and see if they were doing anything freaky that might offer some kind of explanation for this.  A teenage boy answered (well, kind of), cracking the door open 3 inches and peering out at me with one beady eye.  In flat, monosyllabic responses, he conveyed that he had no idea what I was talking about and that I was crazy.  

[This all went down mere minutes after conversing with a homeowner friend about how great it is to live in an apartment complex and not have to worry about home maintenance when the Great Flood seeps up through your bedroom floor or you accidentally stick a shot glass down the garbage disposal or you break off your shower head the day you move in.  (They’re usually adjustable!!)]

And then, within a few minutes after returning home from my lovely chat with our confused neighbor, the water just stopped.  We surmised it was probably the work of those evil spirits we must have summoned during our séance.  Soggy bathroom aside, the party was still fun (I think hope) and at least it gave me an excuse to make cute food.  Too much of it, sure, but cute, nonetheless.

That’s my life’s prerogative, I just realized.  I used to think my life’s prerogative was to translate the undeciphered Minoan Linear A tablets, but now I’m realizing that nope! My life’s work is to make cute food.  And then to give it to people.    

Other excuses to make cute food:

Mole Day (that’s 6.02 x 10^23 reasons right there!!)

Weddings

Peace offerings for your neighbors with the CRAZY ANNOYINGLY LOUD dogs, so that if they hear you yelling “shut up!” through the kitchen wall, hopefully they’ll know it’s not (specifically) directed at them.  

Weekends when your roommate is gone for 5 days in a row :(

And of course, the frontrunner: social media validation