AbsurdBeats

So I awoke to a great wailing and gnashing of teeth. . . no, wait, that’s not right.

So I awoke to confused alarms of struggle and flight. . . no, no, that’s not it, either.

So I awoke to a sledgehammer pounding the plaster and tile in the apartment above. Ah, yes: that’s more like it.

This was a good thing.

Why? Because of this:

The cats noticed before I did (I always get nervous when they stare at the wall or ceiling, afraid of some fearsome bug), but before long the consequences of those odd, easily-ignored, noises became apparent.

Don’t judge me: When you live in an old building, there are always odd noises. If you don’t learn to ignore them, you will spend all of your time tracking down the whys and wherefores.

This, however, could not be ignored. Friday night it was just the living room wall, but by Saturday, the other side of the wall, in the bathroom, was pooching out. The living room wall looked bad, but there wasn’t too much water; the bathroom wall, however, was rather too weepy.

I’m not much for weeping, either by me or my walls, but daubing it with a towel wasn’t going to make it all better. So, in the spirit of what used to be called jerry-rigging, then MacGyvering, but has now been snazzed up to “life-hack” (which, by the way, did you see this list of 99 life-hacks? handy!), I rigged up a catch-basin for the wall’s tears:

Two keys to this, of course: One, the cap (which, unlike the recyclable jug, had to be dug out of the trash), and two, the tape. The water would just have dripped behind the plastic had it not been given a slide from the tile into the jug. Luckily, the drip path didn’t follow the grout line, so the tape held its own.

(And no, that’s not sewage in the jug; the water was colored by whatever is in the wall.

Anyway, the super was up bright and early smashing walls for the plumber, and they’re now up there stomping and clanging and scaring the hell out of my cats and, hopefully, putting an end to the source of the walls’ agonies.