the sky is falling (in my bathroom)

It had been an awesome Saturday. It started with a free tour of a local brewery (NJ Beer Company). Then I met one of my best friend's new born daughter. After that it was on to an all you can eat sushi / Japanese food buffet. the night ended with 3 games of bowling at Bowl Rite lanes in Union City. It was a full, fun filled day with my girlfriend and a few friends that left me fully exhausted by the end of it.

The night ended with me knocking out watching TV at home. My girlfriend had knocked out in the bedroom. We gotten in around 2am and started our slumber somewhere around 3am. All was good until about 5am. I was in a deep sleep when all of the sudden I was rudely woken up by loud crashing noises in my apartment. I didn't know what it was that just woke me up. But i bounced up and off the couch scared that something terrible just happened. I ran to my bedroom screaming, asking if my girlfriend was alright in there. I ran in and she was fine. She had also been woken up by the loud crashing. We briefly shared a, "what the fuck was that," moment and then I continued to search for the source of the crashing.

It didn't take me long to find the cause. I opened the door to my bathroom. I tried opening it all the way, but something prevented me from doing so and the door was stopped at the half way point. I turned on the light and was horrified by what I saw. About a third of my bathroom ceiling had collapsed and fallen to the ground. My entire bathroom was covered in chunks of ceiling. My bathroom and sink were filled with chunks of building innards. I could hardly see the bathroom floor that was buried under the debris. The only clear spot seemed to be the part of the floor I had just pushed back as I was opening the door.

My girlfriend and I stood there in shock and assessed the totality of the destruction. After a few moments I started grabbing at bathroom amenities that were covered with a layer of ceiling junk; the toothpaste, the soap, the mouthwash, the clock radio I use to listen to music while I shower. I heard a buzzing sound that was driving me crazy. I was frazzled and paranoid that the buzzing was coming from my toilet. I was scared the debris landing on the toilet somehow broke my toilet. I was relieved when I realized it was my pulse toothbrush that had been turned on somehow during its fall to the ground.

It was 5am and I figured at this point in the day, there was no one to call and nothing to do to fix this situation. I decided we'd try and snooze for a bit and wake up at 8am and make some phone calls. Sleeping wasn't easy at first. I was shaken by the whole turn of events. But in reflection, I was glad that neither my girlfriend or I were in there when it all happened. If one of us had been showering at the moment it happened, we would've surely been hit by pieces of ceiling as they fell from the sky.

We slept for about 3 hours. The whole time I was dreaming about what had just happened. I had dreams of me calling my super in the morning. I had dreams of what would be done about it. In one dream, things weren't going so smoothly and it was taking multiple days for my super to fix everything in there. I woke up and went back to sleep 4 times, each time I was unable to reset my brain. No matter what, my brain was consumed by my bathroom that looked like a war zone.

(I try not to use the term 'war zone' lightly. That was my first thought when I first flipped my bathroom light switch on. It looked like North Bergen, NJ had just suffered a bombing of some sort. I took a video on my cell phone of the damage. It's only about a minute long. CNN could take the footage and splice it seamlessly with other stock footage they show whenever they're reporting on an area that recently suffered a missile attack of some sort. No one would be the wiser.)

I woke up at 8am as planned and called the building's owner. No answer. Called the super. No answer. I left the super a voicemail and tried to call the owner one more time. As the owner's phone was ringing, the super was calling me back. I answered and explained to him what had happened. That in itself is no easy feat. English is my super's second language, and he's not all that fluent in it. I've called him for little things here and there before and each time communicating what was wrong over the phone was always a challenge of some sort. He also has a reputation of saying he'll show up and then never does. You have to call him a few times to get his assistance. This was an emergency though. I had to communicate the fact that this was urgent. This couldn't wait. I can't shower till this is fixed. This can't be ignored for three days.

I had successfully communicated the urgency. It took a couple of hours but one of the super's maintenance people showed up at the door. He rang the bell 5 times in a row at about 10:30am. I was relieved to know that the recovery was officially under way.

I let him in and he asked, "What's the problem? Is it a leak or something?"

I told him, "It's a lot more than a leak. I can't explain, but you'll see."

A few seconds later he was shocked to see the damage. I wonder if the term 'war zone' came to mind when he saw my disheveled, unusable bathroom. He took a look at the damage and told me that nothing could be done till tomorrow. He said he'd show up with a couple other guys first thing in the morning. I accepted the fact that nothing could be done sooner. He left and the clock started ticking. I wouldn't have a fully functioning bathroom for at least another 24 hours.

My girlfriend and I had considered cleaning the piles of debris and chunks of ceiling. But we quickly changed our minds and decided against it. I was pretty pissed. I know it's not my super's fault the ceiling collapsed. But the building I live in is old and falling apart. Since I've been here, the owner has never made any attempt to keep the place in good shape. It's his building and his investment. If his ceiling is going to collapse on me at 5am on a Sunday morning, I wanted no part in the clean up process.

Sunday went by much like any other Sunday, except I felt dirty. Otherwise it was all standard procedure for the weekend. I watched football. I drank beer. I ordered Italian. My brother came by for a while to hang out. The Jets kicked the Patriots asses.

I decided that I was going to call out from work the next day. I didn't want to go to work without showering for 2 days. I'd rather hang around and make sure my bathroom was attended to as promised.

I was woken up early Monday morning by the doorbell ringing multiple times. As promised, three dudes were here to fix everything up. As soon as they settled in I decided to go to the laundry mat around the corner and do some laundry. I figured it'd beat sitting around the house waiting and watching as three guys fix my bathroom up.

Laundry took about 2 hours. I came back to my apartment and as I was coming in one of the dudes was coming out of my apartment. He told me they were done. I was impressed at how speedy they were. I was scared it'd be an all day process. I went inside to check it out. It was surreal to see my bathroom not covered in ceiling debris. There was my floor and there was the bottom of my tub and sink, not covered in junk. There's my ceiling looking whole and complete.

I decided now was as good a time as any to give my bathroom a good cleaning. I was totally exhausted and spent by the time I finished with that task. I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since Friday. I had been sleeping in 2 and 3 hour chunks here and there. I knocked out and caught some of the greatest sleep ever. I woke up feeling fully refreshed and ready to blog about the whole ordeal.

It's now about 6:37pm on Monday. I still haven't showered. I'm letting everything in my bathroom fully dry and set into place. I know that steam and humidity from showering could have a negative effect if it's too soon after my new ceiling had been put into place. I patiently wait for tomorrow when I wake up to get ready for work. I'll probably wake up a little earlier than usual. One of the greatest showers of my life awaits me.

Now that it seems this whole experience is behind me, I find myself suffering from a slight phobia of my ceiling falling again. In fact, it might be a while before I ever fully trust a ceiling anywhere to do its job and stay up above me. I might never shower or brush my teeth the same way again. I'll always have an emergency, "Duck and Take Cover With My Hands Over My Head," plan ready to go at any moment just in case a ceiling decides to give up on me again.