moving on up

my tv weighs 80 kilos, and Father was not at all pleased with having to carry it up 4 flights of stairs to find my door incorrigibly locked (the squat hong kong man we hired to help was likewise irked, but it wasn't his place to complain).

it wasn't my fault at all. my agent hadn't given me the key to the upper lock on my wrought iron door (she wasn't sure one existed). she thought it'd be ok if she told the landlord's agent to keep that lock unlocked, except i, in my good intentions, had dragged myself to do some reconnaissance of the apartment-to-be before my parents came (precisely so i could be sure that all the doors opened and so on), and the lock works on a spring mechanism from the inside, so when i locked up the place, both locks on the iron door caught. so after some storming and some huffing, we leave the tv there to keep watch in case the door should open of its own accord, and contrariwise the barred door to keep the tv from running off (with the dish and the spoon to china, which, incidentally is not so far away).

eventually we found a locksmith to force entry and to tape the lock ineffective. a little cleverness on my part could've opened the door too--he basically used a thin metal strip (the kind you use to jimmy car doors) and reached behind the bars to unhook the lock from the inside. to recover my nerd pride, i reached behind someone's drawer to retrieve her hair band today (it was hard to get to!).

upon seeing my room, daddy dear had two things to say: 1. "it's ok..." 2. "it's gonna be noisy. " thanks for the support pops. and then he noticed that three of the windows didn't have bars across them (i think it was done on purpose so i could reach the clotheslines)..."they should install those, it's not safe". NOT SAFE?! from what dad? "someone could climb in" CLIMB IN?! i'm on the fourth floor!!! "so?" and what would they steal exactly, my 80 kg tv?! "your wallet". sigh. i give up. no one makes me feel like bashing in my head quite like my dad. not that i want to bash in my head or anything...but i imagine he brings me closest to it. indeed, he's the reason i took up cross country in high school.

after lunch, we came upon an off-white pleather couch sitting by its lonesome. instead of calling for help like sensible people, we decide to rescue it ourselves. apparently the pain of the tv didn't embed itself firmly enough in our floppy arms. so, six blocks, two flights of stairs, and an escalator ride later, we're finally at my apartment. we still have to deal with the four stories atop which i live. heave, ho! i now know how a dentist must feel when faced with a closed-mouthed, petulant child. we fought that couch all the way up. but now my friends have a place to sleep when they come! yay! and in case you failed to catch it, yes, it is a reclaimed couch from the curb, but it deserves your love nonetheless. for those keeping count, my apartment now has two pieces of "furniture": a couch and a tv. i've all i need. when my parents asked why i needed a fridge (provided by the landlord), i told them "for beer". they believed me.

my officemate offered to throw away the roll that's been sitting on my desk since last week. i'm gonna eat it when she's not looking. she's gone to the doctor to check out her lazy eye...she doesn't have a lazy eye, but she tried to convince me she did for a good ten minutes the other day by following the motion of my finger with her eyes. it was terrific fun for me. i kept drawing figure eights in the air, and she kept drawing figure eights with her eyes. i don't think she ever caught on that i was just toying with her. hehehe...