Flush Club OR "I am Jack's Porcelain Altar"

Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne...

And that throne is my toilet.

A while ago, you may remember me talking about having a clog so tragic that the spirit of Homer himself wrote a saga about it. Much like a Greek epic, it was a lurid yet moral tale. Heroes died... thousands were slain in battle... and many gods were invoked. But in the end, everything resolved itself and many rejoiced.

Once again though, the heavens shake! The very pits of hell crack at their foundations! Beasts wail, children moan, and not a mother goes to sleep that does not dread what evil the night may bring. LO! A darkness casts itself from Death itself and places a blight upon my bathroom!!!

Damn you, my twice-cursed waste reciptical! I returned home from a long day's labor only to discover a gaping hole the size of Ted Kennedy's head in the wall behind my toilet! Indeed, the porcelain monstrosity is a toilet of many toils.

Apparently, water started leaking out of the wall of the toilet last night. But it stopped after I fiddled with the pipe leading into the wall. So I mopped up the mess, went to bed, and then told the apartment management about it as I left for work this morning at 8:40am. I come back at 5:45PM to find that no leak is coming from the pipe anymore. Oh good.

Instead, the maintenance people left me with a gaping mother fucking ABYSS of exposed piping and insulation. Didn't even leave me a fucking note to say they'll be back tonight to patch it up. I called the front desk, but the receptionist that works the phones after the office closes quite obviously is useless. All she can do is take down a message to leave for the office people... tomorrow. When I could call them myself. With a wry smile to myself, I asked, "Could you at least call the maintenance guys and see when they plan to come back and finish this?"

"No, sir. I can only call them for emergency work after the office closes."

Points of interest:

1) Are they really "maintenance" people? I don't feel as though my bathroom was properly maintened. Or even half maintened. It's actually in worse shape then I left it in this morning.

2) Is this receptionist running a suicide hotline? I mean, she must be... right? Because she can't do anything herself that would help me. She can't contact apartment management to help me. And she can't contact maintenance to help me. So her real purpose must be to talk me into NOT killing myself from frustration.

All ranting aside, I'm a bit unnerved about the prospect of using that toilet tonight. Who knows what the hell might dwell within the confines of an apartment complex bathroom wall.