Thursday, December 14, 2006

(I Can't Get No) Facilitation

It’s flooded. All of it. The window sill’s wetter than Heidi Flyce and the carpet is moldier than her career. I can’t walk two feet without soaking my current choice of footwear, and my sponge collection has seen better days. I get up in the morning thinking that I’m on the inside of a whale’s belly. Some may be intrigued by all of this but not Mike Hadge, no sir. You understand, last year I resided in the basement of Finlay hall, which is known for its frequent floods, easy sneak-through windows, and sassin’ good times. Fed up with paying forty grand a year to boogie board to bed every night, I chose this year to live on the thirteenth floor of Walsh Hall, thus essentially moving from the lowest point on campus to the highest. Unless of course you count the Keating clock tower, but Pigeon Man already lives there. So my natural expectation was that I would be miles away from any sort of floodage in my personal habitat. Not so fast, said Fordham (in bitchy conjunction with Mother Nature).
Maybe it was something in the smell of the rotting carpet and peeling wall plaster, but I was moved to call Fordham’s facilities and custodial services to get the chaos in my room restored to the dry kingdom it once was. However, mere telephonal communication proved fruitless, as I was constantly greeted by an automated voice message system or an extremely Jamaican sounding man who would always put me on hold to Joe Cocker’s “Up Where We Belong” and leave me there. More drastic measures had to be taken. I headed down to the facilities office the other day in search of assistance, but found only a dark abandoned room with many broken liquor bottles and Frito wrappers on the ground. I picked up one of said wrappers and crushed it with all my strength in frustration before hurling it to the ground. However, before I left something else caught my eye: a pink feathery bound journal that looked like it had survived a shark attack. What I read within that journal left me shocked, awed, and shawed, a combination of “shocked” and “awed” that I made up just now. My people, I now present you with the horrific contents of this mystery journal found in facilities. The faint of heart should not proceed. Pregnant women welcome.

August 14, 2006 – It was a long day for Marty and me. Three foozeball tournaments in a row are enough to wipe out any guy, but we’d just finished five. Naturally, yours truly emerged the raining cham-peen. Still rubbing it in Marty’s face, you should see how mad he gets, its friggin hilarious. He’s got this vein on his forehead that’s like right between his eyes, you know? That thing just busts out and he gets all read and puffy, like his head’s gonna explode. Ah, priceless. Alright, it’s 2:40 – quittin’ time!

August 19, 2006 – Ah, the little ones are going to be arriving soon. I love this time of year, you know? Fresh new faces, fresh young bodies, all previous violations have been long forgotten. Me and Marty were in charge of mowing that lawn in front of Alpha house. I guess there’s gonna be some new statue of God or something. So we got our ride on mowers, right? We had already had a few since it was Fosters Friday at facilities. So we start taking bets as to who can get their side done the fastest, so naturally I gun it and am kicking Marty’s patute. Now this mower was going unusually fast, and when I was done (get this!) the brakes wouldn’t go. So I try a few levers, nothing’s working. At that point I decide the best move is to jump, so I get off that thing as fast as I can, but it keeps going. It broke through the fence and kept riding down the road. I still don’t know what happened to it. Awesome.

August 21, 2006 – Okay, get this! A kid in Finlay calls us up today saying his faucet isn’t working. I get up there and fiddle around with the thing and say “well duh, there’s no water coming out of it!” Jerk dragged me up there for that?

August 24, 2006 – Well its Wednesday so you know what that means – “Dance Dance Revolution” day! I thought it might be a little tight in the boiler room for my tube, but it fits in here fine, just had to move the Pac Man machine to the corner. I don’t mean to brag, but I got the moves all over Marty, who can’t move both feet at once for some reason. Ah, it’s funny watching him try though. That vein comes out again, friggin’ hilarious. By 1:00 PM we were both beat, so I make an executive decision and take the phone off the hook. Naptime will not be disturbed.

September 24, 2006 – Marty and I just got back from our paid vacation in Honolulu. Lemme tell ya, it’s as good as, no, better than the hype. They got these kick ass drinks in a coconut with a tiny umbrella sticking out, friggin’ great! When we got back there were “2536 messages” on our machine - nothing our little friend the “erase all” button can’t take care of.

September 25, 2006 – Jet lag. No calls.

October 10, 2006 – Jeez, it’s been raining all week. I feel like my one jumpsuit has been damp and soggy the whole freakin’ time, it’s ridiculous. Ah well, at least it gives me and Marty an excuse to break out our “rainy day kit”, which is mainly just some girlie magazines and beef jerky. Naturally, some kids keep calling in complainin’ that they want their heat to start working or their ceiling to stop leaking or their room to stop flooding. God, what do I look like, the friggin’ tooth fairy?

October 12, 2006 – Freekin’ balls, these kids won’t stop calling us. Aw, your room’s flooded, you’ve developed namoanya from the broken heat, your computer sparks every time you hit the spacebar because of water exposure…boo-frikin’-hoo! They’re starting to sound really pissed too! It’s freakin’ hilarious! Get this, earlier today some kid’s mother calls me yelling about how I should be doing a “decent job” and the “dangerous environment” for her kid and how “the Jesuits are going to hear about this”! Come on, lady. First of all, it sounds like you haven’t gotten a “decent job” in a long time. Second of all, loosen up for crying out loud, geez! I could really go for another beer.

October 13, 2006 – At this point we just stopped answering the damn phone, but it just keeps friggin’ ringing! Hangovers and touch tones do not freakin’ mix.

October 16, 2006 – So Marty and I were in the middle of a killer game of Jenga (I, of course, was mopping the floor with him), and our manager Jimenez comes in. Now he’s not even in uniform, he’s got a freakin’ Nets jersey on with a pair of mesh shorts. He’s down here telling us “there’s been complaints” and that we “gotta get moving on this stuff”, of course as he just starts breaking out the Game Cube, right? So Marty and I climb out of our bunk beds and head to Walsh, where apparently some kid’s room started flooding. After a stop at the deli to get some Klondike bars (friggin’ love these things), Marty and I finally get there – and the kid’s not even there! Of course, his room’s flooded as hell and it smells like moldy carpet. Friggin’ disgusting! So I go open the window to air out the smell. That should take care of that problem. On the way back, Marty and I stopped to get another Klondike bar. Freakin’ love these things.

October 17, 2006 – You’re not gonna freakin’ believe this! The same freakin’ kid who’s room we went to yesterday calls us again telling us the room’s still flooded! So I march down there (Marty was again at Pilates), and you’re not gonna friggin believe this- the kid’s window was open! So I shut the window and left. Some people man, un-freakin’-believable.

October 18, 2006 – So I get this call at like 1 PM, which pissed me off ‘cuz, of course, Days of Our Lives is on. So it’s this girl who tells me that there’s a leak in her ceiling and it’s landing on all of her electric equipment and it’s very dangerous, yadda yadda. So I get there at about 2:15, after finishing Days and getting sucked into watchin the first ten minutes of Passions. She’s freaking out and shows me the leak coming from her vent, a pretty common situation. One that’s easily fixed. Now this girl was smokin’, had some enormous ta-tas if you know what I’m saying, so I use all the charm that I got. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve been called by today” I tell her. Then she started acting all weird and uncomfortable, like I’m a freakin’ bear or something. I told her there was nothing I could do about the leak, and managed to catch the last half hour of Passions.

October 19, 2006 – Ah, Friday. Man I tell ya, after a long week of coming into work, it’s beautiful being able to just take it easy for once. Man this is gonna be a nice weekend; I’m drinking beer. Not now, I mean, this weekend. Well, yeah, now too, but that ain’t what I was talking about.

October 23, 2006 – I’m getting freakin’ psyched. Marty and I are packing for our paid vacation to the Bahamas and we just keep talking about stuff we’re gonna do; streak on a beach; drink beers while we’re streaking; shower while drinking beers; drink; float on one of those rafty things with a beer; beer shop; look up at clouds and pretend they’re beer while drinking beer. Man it’s gonna be sweet. I love you, journal.

There you have it. I’ve since kept the journal safely in the confines of my room, where I let an old sea captain who as moved in read it from time to time. I guess I can’t say I’m too surprised with what I’ve found in this journal, it sure does explain a lot. As for me, I must go up for oxygen now. Why am I typing on a laptop under water anyway? THIS IS SUCH A BAD IDEA!

No comments: