Or Puerto Stinko, as Insta-Friend referred to it tonight. I’d been thinking it was time for a new post, but really wasn’t feeling inspired. Since Dad left, nothing much exciting has happened. Well, except spending Halloween weekend like a 25 year old in Vegas, but even then I didn’t have any really interesting stories to share. Oh, and dealing with a mild tick infestation. But I can’t elaborate on that here if I ever expect my sister to visit. Let’s just say I’d been warned they are a problem here, little did I know.
Well, careful what you wish for, right? Today was a very strange day. It started with a meeting I was hosting at work to train the Puerto Rico dealers on selling our Extended Service Plans. Have you ever thought about what it might be like to be in charge of the ebb and flow of a meeting that is largely being conducted in a language you don’t entirely understand? I have. It’s disconcerting. Sure, they all speak English, and do so when addressing me, but it’s not their first choice. When the conversation gets going, they all revert to Spanish, and I’m sure I’d do the same. Fortunately, my coworker was there to assist, but when you’re supposed to be the one keeping things moving and you have no feel for the mood or context of the conversation, of if what you're about to talk about has actually just been discussed, it's a challenge.
After two and a half hours of that, I went straight to my Spanish lesson, also stressful. We’re getting past the stuff I already knew, and it seems more often than not, when we’re done I have a mild headache. After the lesson I had a phone call from our Michigan offices that turned into an in-depth conversation about the math behind the Return on Investment required for a promotion I want to run. This also proved stressful, as I was finding the math WAY too difficult for someone with an MBA. Ugh.
I left the office spot on five o’clock, not sure if I was headed straight home or making a detour at the gym. Usually, if I leave right at five, it doesn’t take me more than a half hour to make the five mile trek home, and most of the time I can do it in 20 minutes. Well, not tonight. Tonight we set a new record: One Hour and Eight Minutes to go 4.9 miles. For absolutely no good reason other than there are far too many people on the road here without a clue how to drive, let alone when there’s a mild sprinkle falling. Ugh. Needless to say, the time I would have spent at the gym I instead spent in the car, so straight home I went.
As soon as I opened the door, I knew something was wrong. There was a noise coming from the back bedroom like someone had a power blower on. Turned out it wasn’t a blower, but a toilet that had turned into Old Faithful and was spewing water all over the back half of the apartment. Hence, Puerto Stinko. Luckily, it was clean water because it was ALL OVER the master bedroom. Into the closet, pooled under the bed, bathmats completely soaked, bed skirt saturated. After the commute home, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I turned the water off and the spewing stopped, then called the landlord. She gave me the number for a plumber who didn’t answer. I googled “Puerto Rico Roto Rooter” and came up with nothing. So I called my contact from the relocation firm my company has us work with, and she is a miracle worker. Scheduled a plumber to come out at 8pm. I was told the relo company gets 10% of our rent each month the entire time we are posted here. As far as I’m concerned, it’s money well spent to know I have someone I can call with connections.
Not knowing where to start with the clean up, I drug all the bathmats out onto the patio. Thinking about how many towels and how many runs of the dryer it was going to take to soak up all that water, I knew I had to come up with another plan. My first thought was that I really wish I had the shammy demo guy from the Puyallup Fair on speed dial. I could’ve used a couple dozen shammies. Obviously that wasn’t going to pan out, but it did lead to my second thought. I have a big window squeegee the previous renters left for washing the big patio windows. And the floors are tile. So I squeegeed the water all through the bedroom, into the bathroom and down the shower drain. I thought my walk in shower was kind of cool and modern, little did I know it would also prove handy and functional; I could just push the flow right down the drain.
It took about an hour to squeegee the place, and the best part is, the floors probably haven’t been this clean since, well, the last time the place flooded. The real miracle of the night? The plumber showed up on time! Took him 10 minutes to replace a hose and be on his merry way. And put one more check in the column for never owning a home again.
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