Double Flee A

Troy, the guy who fixes stuff in the apartment building I live in, doesn't come around very often.
He's responsible so far for improved water pressure and drainage and a new stove. Which is good.

Building inspectors are coming around Tuesday to see if this place is inhabitable and Troy has assured my roommate and I that it's all gonna be ok. See Troy's planning to pick up about sixty smoke detectors and fix some electrical sockets that we borrowed from the set of Fight Club.

Troy's assurances don't go all that far with me right now. Why?

My water was totally shut off for four days before he could get it back on. Try living four days with no water. Complicated.

The really strange part of Troy is his salesmanship. He's like Hitler. He gets on an oratorical rampage and can't be stopped. The thing is, my roommate and I stand there listening to him go on and on about how great he's going to make everything and we look at each other like "are you kidding me? he's still talking?" but Troy just keeps talking and talking. Troy thinks he's a real spellbinder. But he's not.

Last time he was here he brought his ten-year old son with him to dump some chemical down the pipe and make it drain better. The product was called something like "bio-clean" and Troy was telling us how he's a local distributor for the company. Troy's got his fingers in a lot of pies. The product is hamless to living things, he said, but hell on clogged pipes. He told us that he had been in an old lady's home demonstrating the mighty power of this supernaturally good drain cleaner, and he had actually drank some right there in front of her to show how harmless it is to people. She hadn't believed it! But it was true! The cleaner was just that amazingly good! Thr roomy and I looked at each other in disbelief, which I hope pleased Troy, but what we couldn't believe was that Troy himself was as demonstrably crazy as we suspected. Drinking drain cleaner. I predict a last-minute Monday night run to Home Depot for a zillion smoke detectors and a rent credit for Dale. And for Troy I predict either an early death from poisoning or a career in fascist politics.

posted by dale @ 11:10 AM