The day of endless Nothing: prequel
So today shall be the day of endless Nothing.
Allow me to elaborate.
During this particular span of the year, it becomes time for old friends to leave, and new friends to arrive. That is to say, a certain proportion of residents pick up and go, generally leaving in their wake a barrage of empty alcohol bottles and a variety of other goodies ripe for the picking (a few days ago I scored four great bags, brand new face wash, and Gucci perfume and moisturizer...yesterday I found a bag of unopened groceries, including tons and tons of expensive teas...and back in May I got a brand new TV).
But, as with the ways of the world, with death comes rebirth. In the form of more drunk and disorderly students.
Fortunately, due to the impressive inefficiency of the university bureaucracy, the amount of people leaving far outweighs the amount of people returning.
However, unfortunately for myself, this has brought me to the day of endless Nothing.
The obligations of my "job" require me to be in THE office today from 9 am to 7pm to assist new residents as they move into our complex of buildings. But, as I have just mentioned, there is a large deficit in entering summer students. As a result, there is not a single person who is scheduled to move into the entire complex on this day. Not one. Zero.
And so we have, and it must be clear by now, the day of endless Nothing.
I will be documenting this enthralling experience periodically throughout the day. So, as such, let's document.
It all began normally enough, despite the fact that I chose to sleep in my bed last night. Recently I've taken to sleeping on the floor for due to two recurring problems. One: my bed has become increasingly creaky for unknown reasons. The slightest motion results in a maelstrom of variously pitched creaks and metallic clangs. Obviously, this can prove troublesome to the light sleeper. Two: my bed has become increasingly uncomfortable for unknown reasons. Upon waking from a night of wakeful sleep, I often find myself with pain in the neck, shoulders, lower back, and hips. Last night's eight hours certainly reminded me why I prefer the floor, and I assure you that I will back down there tonight.
But I digress.
My alarm woke me at 8 am sharp, and I, of course, hit the snooze. I ended up sleeping until about 8:30, at which point I had to come to terms with not having time for a shower and breakfast. I opted for breakfast, which consisted of an english muffin covered with funny tasting margarine left by one of my former roommates because I ran out of soy milk the other day and haven't had a chance to pick more up and, even though Scott swears it's good, I will not eat my cocoa crispies with just water.
While I was toasting my muffin, I noticed a particularly offensive odor wafting its way around our kitchen and living room. I sniffed around, poked my nose into dark places, but ultimately discovered nothing. That is, until I opened the refrigerator to put the margarine away. It was immediately obvious where the smell was coming from.
One of my roommates moved out on Wednesday. Let me premise this by saying, she liked a lot of weird food. So, in the back of the fridge I see sitting a large oval red can...it looked like a cat food can. I peeked in and, lo and behold, it's a sardine can. It had in it one sardine, belly up, and one of my forks. And, lawdy lawd, that fish stank.
I grabbed a plastic bag and worked up my courage. My instincts told me to salvage my fork, but when I saw the movement of the fork stir up the fish entrails and various other goos, I opted to let the fork fend for itself.
Now, I had never seen a sardine before. So when I pulled the can out of the refrigerator, I was inclined to take a gander.
Gross.
Like I said, the fish was belly up...and its belly was not looking too good. All of it's white little belly scales were flaking away, and the line from its head to its tail was splitting open, revealing the pink, stinky, fishy insides.
I'm sure I made about 15 grimaces before managing to drop the can, with fork in tow, into the plastic bag. For my own safety, I decided to put that bag into another, and I tied it up as tightly as I could. I dropped the thing down in the trash room before leaving for THE office.
When I reached the appropriate building, I was thrilled to find a giant banana-yellow trash bin in the middle of the hallway. Being a good samaritan, I took it down to the trash area and, on my way back upstairs, stopped to buy a nutri-grain out of the vending machine, as I knew I would be missing lunch and a reasonably scheduled dinner.
As I plodded up the three flights of stairs, I realized that there is a reason those english muffin commercials show a four course meal when they say "part of a complete breakfast." An english muffin is not enough to get you up those stairs.
Thank goodness for the nutri-grain bar.
More later, when the day of endless Nothing gets really nothingy.
Stay tuned!
Allow me to elaborate.
During this particular span of the year, it becomes time for old friends to leave, and new friends to arrive. That is to say, a certain proportion of residents pick up and go, generally leaving in their wake a barrage of empty alcohol bottles and a variety of other goodies ripe for the picking (a few days ago I scored four great bags, brand new face wash, and Gucci perfume and moisturizer...yesterday I found a bag of unopened groceries, including tons and tons of expensive teas...and back in May I got a brand new TV).
But, as with the ways of the world, with death comes rebirth. In the form of more drunk and disorderly students.
Fortunately, due to the impressive inefficiency of the university bureaucracy, the amount of people leaving far outweighs the amount of people returning.
However, unfortunately for myself, this has brought me to the day of endless Nothing.
The obligations of my "job" require me to be in THE office today from 9 am to 7pm to assist new residents as they move into our complex of buildings. But, as I have just mentioned, there is a large deficit in entering summer students. As a result, there is not a single person who is scheduled to move into the entire complex on this day. Not one. Zero.
And so we have, and it must be clear by now, the day of endless Nothing.
I will be documenting this enthralling experience periodically throughout the day. So, as such, let's document.
It all began normally enough, despite the fact that I chose to sleep in my bed last night. Recently I've taken to sleeping on the floor for due to two recurring problems. One: my bed has become increasingly creaky for unknown reasons. The slightest motion results in a maelstrom of variously pitched creaks and metallic clangs. Obviously, this can prove troublesome to the light sleeper. Two: my bed has become increasingly uncomfortable for unknown reasons. Upon waking from a night of wakeful sleep, I often find myself with pain in the neck, shoulders, lower back, and hips. Last night's eight hours certainly reminded me why I prefer the floor, and I assure you that I will back down there tonight.
But I digress.
My alarm woke me at 8 am sharp, and I, of course, hit the snooze. I ended up sleeping until about 8:30, at which point I had to come to terms with not having time for a shower and breakfast. I opted for breakfast, which consisted of an english muffin covered with funny tasting margarine left by one of my former roommates because I ran out of soy milk the other day and haven't had a chance to pick more up and, even though Scott swears it's good, I will not eat my cocoa crispies with just water.
While I was toasting my muffin, I noticed a particularly offensive odor wafting its way around our kitchen and living room. I sniffed around, poked my nose into dark places, but ultimately discovered nothing. That is, until I opened the refrigerator to put the margarine away. It was immediately obvious where the smell was coming from.
One of my roommates moved out on Wednesday. Let me premise this by saying, she liked a lot of weird food. So, in the back of the fridge I see sitting a large oval red can...it looked like a cat food can. I peeked in and, lo and behold, it's a sardine can. It had in it one sardine, belly up, and one of my forks. And, lawdy lawd, that fish stank.
I grabbed a plastic bag and worked up my courage. My instincts told me to salvage my fork, but when I saw the movement of the fork stir up the fish entrails and various other goos, I opted to let the fork fend for itself.
Now, I had never seen a sardine before. So when I pulled the can out of the refrigerator, I was inclined to take a gander.
Gross.
Like I said, the fish was belly up...and its belly was not looking too good. All of it's white little belly scales were flaking away, and the line from its head to its tail was splitting open, revealing the pink, stinky, fishy insides.
I'm sure I made about 15 grimaces before managing to drop the can, with fork in tow, into the plastic bag. For my own safety, I decided to put that bag into another, and I tied it up as tightly as I could. I dropped the thing down in the trash room before leaving for THE office.
When I reached the appropriate building, I was thrilled to find a giant banana-yellow trash bin in the middle of the hallway. Being a good samaritan, I took it down to the trash area and, on my way back upstairs, stopped to buy a nutri-grain out of the vending machine, as I knew I would be missing lunch and a reasonably scheduled dinner.
As I plodded up the three flights of stairs, I realized that there is a reason those english muffin commercials show a four course meal when they say "part of a complete breakfast." An english muffin is not enough to get you up those stairs.
Thank goodness for the nutri-grain bar.
More later, when the day of endless Nothing gets really nothingy.
Stay tuned!
posted by Christopher The Lion at 09:20
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home