The Week that Hell Froze Over.

Greetings, slummerinos. 

So, our hot water tank broke this week.

That is to say the bottom fell out. This happens to appliances that are older than I am. Maybe to people too. I'm not there yet.

I first noticed on Monday morning when I went to shower. The shower was cold. Not just cheap-hotel, early-flight, needed-to-sober-up-anyway cold, but my-testicles-just-sent-me-photos-from-Antarctica cold. That is pretty damn cold.

At first I blamed Andrea, because she was around and it was convenient. I said, jokingly, "Hey, roommate. Way to use up all that hot water". She shot me a stare that was icier than the shower. Then I knew we had a problem.

See, I've bathed in the lake with a soap bar before, or washed myself in a barrel of rain. I call it camping (or, alternatively, visiting my folks). So really, the lack of hot water was never the problem. Going to work has been the problem. I've been sleeping in the woods, waking up, brushing myself off with pine needles, throwing on my finest squirrel-skin cloak and stepping into an office. This week I had a surprise evaluation. It went well, probably. I barely listened. I fixated on how bad I smelled, and hoped that the lawyer evaluating me didn't have the sudden urge to take a whiff. Which lawyers are known to do.

The other day, walking home, I encounter two shaggy-clothed men for who seemed generally indifferent about having hot water. I was listening to my music. One of them yelled something at me. I stopped and listened. Here's how our conversation went:

"Hey, you a lawyer?"
"Umm yeah. Actually I am. Wait, no. Not yet. Maybe one day."
"Hey, are you James Bond?"
"Yes. Yes I am."
"Want to make some money?"
...
(the remainder of this conversation has been removed due to solicitor-client privilege)

It's good to know that I can go a week without showering, and be mistaken for 007.

Andrea has been a good sport. She has substantially more hair that I do, and that lovely Georgia-peach competition of hers. Naturally, she also has higher hygiene standards. Furthermore, she works at a law firm where people seem to care what you smell like.

I wouldn't exactly call her a "morning person", the same way I wouldn't exactly call Rob Ford a Nobel Laureate. She also doesn't seem to drink coffee (poor thing). So take away her one morning ritual, and she's bound to get a little ornery. But she's mostly been cool about it. In a passive-aggressive, good-thing-she's-on-my-side kind of way.

Today I felt innovative. I boiled a pot of water in our large cooking pot, and bathed with it. Which felt a-mazing, until I realized that I was washing myself in bits of pasta, because we hadn't really done dishes all week, because we had no hot water. Oh, how the dogs stack up.

The repairmen came by the other night, with our landlady (i.e. the sweet old lady whose basement we live in) in tow. She was genuinely surprised that hot water tanks expire at all. Then she noticed that someone had run an exhaust pipe through her basement door (i.e. our fire exit). She was not pleased about that, and demanded to know where it came from. The repairman politely informed her that he didn't have a goddamned idea. There was some haggling over the pricing, and I had to basically broker a water-heater deal. Law students never rest, I swear.

So all is resolved: the tank is being replaced tomorrow. If you need me, I'll be in the shower.