Spies Like Us

My oh my oh MY.

This afternoon I spent the majority of my time cleaning. Not because I really wanted to but because the one place I wanted to clean was and remains unavailable for cleaning.

You see, around 3am I woke up to this utterly atrocious splattering noise. I couldn't possibly imagine what it was but immediately blamed it on The Demonspawn. Upon further inspection, however, I ascertained that The Demonspawn were innocent of my accusations with the real culprit being my bathroom ceiling. Apparently it had been storing up a filthy present for a good long time and chose the middle of the night to make it's grand entrance, pouring and splashing a ricockulous (look YoJ, I used it in a sentence) amount of water all over my bathroom floor.

It would have been too much to ask that it burst over the bathtub, wouldn't it.

There wasn't much I could do in the middle of the night so I waited until morning to ring up my landlord. He sent over one of his maintenance men to cut out the sagging plaster and while I appreciate the gesture, all that did was put a layer of soggy dust over the already soppy floor. And because the ceiling is still dripping there's not much point in me cleaning it up, not to mention the fact that my bathroom is so small that there's no place I can stand to clean up the mess without putting myself in the line of (dirty dripping water) fire.

So in lieu of cleaning the bathroom I found myself angrily scrubbing the windows and polishing the armoire and mopping the floors. I scooped the cat litter and took out the trash and lint rolled the furniture. And then I decided I'd clean up the back porch, because I'd let it go all summer and in three short months my pretty glider had been covered in a layer of sticky dust and the poor potted plants had shriveled up inside their terra cotta pots. The plants have actually been dead for a year but I've just been ignoring them, hoping that one day they'd magically sprout again. I have a complete lack of anything pertaining to a green thumb and the opressive humidity found in this part of the country was the biggest deterrent in replanting some greenery.

As I was grabbing the broom off the wall I happened to look outside and spied an unusual vehicle. Not unusual as in lime green unusual but unusual as in I know the two cars that park on my neighbor's parking pad and this shiny SUV wasn't one of them, not to mention that it was parked at an odd angle. My next door neighbor is what you might call cranky and I almost went outside to tell this new person to move their car before Mr. Crankpot got home but decided whoever this was, they could fight their own battles and secretly I was kind of amused that the SUV was blocking the entrance of the driveway.

Upon going out on the back porch to begin the process of sweeping away a summer's worth of crap, I saw a woman in her mid-sixties walking around the edge of my neighbor's house, the part where the outdoor stairs lead to the upstairs apartment that Mr. Crankpot rents out. I smiled and waived and noticed she was getting various cleaning accoutrements from the back of the SUV so I stopped my sweeping to ask her if she was moving in.

No, she said, just my son.

About that time I see, out of the corner of my eye, a rather tall and broad shouldered individual emerging from the side of the building. The woman smiles at me and introduces her son, Jake, and I walk over and shake his hand.

Hell-o, sugar. My name is Robin and I'll be your cute and SINGLE SINGLE SINGLE neighbor. How ever can I assist you today?

Oh, you're gainfully employed? And you speak in complete sentences? And you have all of your natural born teeth? WHAT MORE COULD I ASK?

Now, guess who's going to be making a concerned effort to take her evening coffee on the back porch? GUESS.