Sunday 8 July 2007

Deluge 2.0

Okay, so here's something I learned today. Whenever things are going well, my apartment floods. I'm not kidding. See, a couple of days ago I mentioned that things were going well again, and that I was bracing myself for the worst. After all, the last time things were going well, I came home to find a note from the police that the fire department had broken into my apartment to stop the water.

As it turns out, it's a good thing I was bracing myself, because the last three days haven't exactly been what you would call "good". First of all, I had a nasty allergic reaction to something I ate, which meant I had to bail out of the rather nice Schlossfest on Friday. Nothing too bad, but it did remind me how important it is to carry my bottle of Fenistil with me wherever I go during the Rally.

After that I got sick, which pretty much ruined my Saturday. Didn't go out shopping as planned, didn't clean up the apartment as planned, didn't do anything, really. The only thing I did on Saturday was feel really, really bad.

Today I felt better, so I did clean up the apartment. Big mistake. About an hour ago (I was just about to go to bed) I wandered into the kitchen to find water pouring out from under the sink. I opened the cupboard to find, big surprise, that the damn boiler had sprung a leak. Again.

Now keep in mind here, that this is the exact same thing that happened last time, minus the police and the fire department. I have no idea how this can happen twice. It's not like it was the same boiler. The boiler was brand new. It's not even the same model of boiler as last time. Not even made by the same company! With the same thing happening twice in a row, except with completely different boilers, I would normally suspect user error. But for user error, there has to be some actual use involved, doesn't it? I never even touched either boiler. Ever.

Seriously, what is going on here?

Anyway, there I was kneeling in the water that's rushing out of the cupboard at alarming speed, desperately trying to turn off the water, when I get a nasty electric shock. To be fair, I should have turned off the electricity before touching the water coming out of my broken electric boiler.

But still. Ouch.

Better yet, every single one of my towels was currently in the washing machine, five stories below me. So I used my freshly washed and dried underwear to soak up the water. Which means if course that I will have to wash them again tomorrow! Man, am I looking forward to that. At least I had the presence of mind to reserve enough fresh underwear for tomorrow.

To sum it up:
- An hour ago my apartment was tidy and clean. Now it's dirty and in chaos.
- An hour ago I had fresh underwear. Now I don't.
- An hour ago I had warm water in the kitchen. Now I don't.
- An hour I ago I wasn't pissed off. Now I am!

At least I was home this time. I was actually this close to going out tonight. The only reason I didn't was that I'm still feeling a little sick. I figured I'd go to bed early. Well, that didn't quite work out, but at least I didn't have to pick up yet another set of keys at the police station.

Tonights incident is in fact just the latest in a streak of unbelievably bad luck. For example, just this week my car failed it's TÜV test. This means I need to get it repaired before the Rally, or it no longer counts as road-worthy. A couple of weeks ago, the car broke down on me in the middle of nowhere, with a completely busted radiator, so I've already pumped more money into the car than I am comfortable with and now it needs to go into the shop again. Oh, and on top of that, it's time to pay the vehicle tax this month. Lovely.

I'll spare you the other disasters that have happened to me recently (though an unfortunate incident with my boss's UMTS card is worthy of honorable mention), because I'm tired and want to go to bed. I can't help but wonder however, when this bad luck streak is going to end. Let's hope that by July 21st, I will simply have exhausted all my bad luck for this year, or we'll never even make it to London.

The only person happy about that would be my Mom.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ach Du Scheisse.

Do you know the Infinite Improbability Drive? Sounds like your boiler is somehow connected to it.

(Didn't you complain about the firemen using your clothes to dry the floor?)

Anonymous said...

Honestly, why bother with TÜV -- it's not like anyone would know or care about it once you crossed the border to czech republic..

Richard said...

No, no. We're talking about my Audi here, not our Rally-Polo. When I say "my car", I'm actually talking about my car.

And yes, I did complain about the fire department using my clothes. Here's the difference though: Unlike yesterday they were plenty of towels available to soak up the water. Plus, I'm kind of expecting the fire department to come equipped with stuff to soak up water. Then again, I'd expect them to be able to open a door as well, and they couldn't do that either.

Maybe my expectations are simply unreasonable. They did manage to put out a fire down the road two hours ago, so at least in that respect they seem to know what they're doing.

Anonymous said...

werdet ihr von unterwegs blogen? kriegt ihr das hin?

Richard said...

Bloggen: Jein. Wir werden unterwegs wenn möglich per SMS Updates schicken. Man wird hier also unseren Fortschritt verfolgen können. Wenn wir Internet-Cafés sehen, dann gibt es vielleicht auch echte Blog-Updates.