That's bad, right?

My Calvin Kleins had been sitting by my computer for the past week as my inspiration for my "Blue is my world" series. For reasons unbeknownst to me, or more likely, a victim from me drinking too much and doing things around my apartment that leave me scratching my head for days, they had been moved to my kitchen counter. A pant leg hangs perilously above the trash can-- perhaps I was going to throw them away, but chickened out at the last moment.

I came home from work, dropped my keys into the basket, and walked to my kitchen where I immediately stepped out of my shoes. It's amazing how quickly habits can form. I sorted through the mail, dropping the bills into a box that I will invariably forget about until the night before the bill is due. The rest, pizza specials mostly, go straight into the trash.

My Calvin Kleins greeted me from above the trash can. I looked at them and thought about how I really need to write the conclusion to end the series that only girls can understand. It was then I noticed it. The blue was a little darker and the pants lied underneath... is that... is that plaster?

I picked up my jeans and they were damp. I scratched at the white and it flaked off, leaving behind a white residue where the plaster had been.

I looked up:


The leak I complained about weeks ago had never been patched up. We had been having more storms and, in my first floor apartment, the ceiling had opened itself up. Or, judging from the picture, unzipped itself.

Slightly panicked, I raced down to the leasing office. Only one girl remained and in front of her a cute boy was filling out an application. His mother sat next to him and his father sat across the room, reading a newspaper.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"Um," I didn't know if I should be saying this in front of the prospective resident, but I was also a little pissed. "I came down here two weeks ago and complained to you about a leak in my ceiling. It never got fixed and now the ceiling has literally opened up and plaster is falling everywhere."

The mother sat silently, but her eyes widened a good bit. The boy kept his head down while filling out the application, but his brow furrowed and he stuck his tongue out a little bit while trying to concentrate. The father in the corner flipped the page. The office girl froze, sending me a mental "Oh shit."

"We're, uh, having that leak problem you complained about earlier in only your part of the building," she tried to qualify. "It's by the patio door, right?"

"Well, one leak is. But the leak that's dropping bits of ceiling into my apartment is in my kitchen. A third leak has also begun there."

"I need to, uh, call my manager. I'll call you before I close," she said.

The next day I went to work. I'm glad I left the buckets out because it began to rain. Again. Surely more bits of plaster and more water would be making its way into my apartment. I called at noon to check on the status of my apartment, they still didn't know anything, or if it had been inspected yet.

The office girl called me back right before I left work for the day. "We saw the damage. We're having the people who built the building come out and inspect your apartment tomorrow. In the meantime, please feel free to stay in our guest suite."

I declined the offer because of my dog. That's bad, right? I mean when they have to call the people that built the apartment building, and not just a contractor, that means this is serious. She mentioned something about "replacing the ceiling." I can understand replacing carpet, or replacing cabinets, but I've never heard of replacing a ceiling before. That's bad, right?