A Moth and a Plumber Simultaneously

Every morning I have the best intentions of waking up early enough to give myself time to make my French Vanillla coffee and drink two cups, read the paper (I don't get the paper so maybe online), do some writing (I could get a page or two in the morning if I tried), listen to a little NPR news and get dressed and stuff.

But as always happens, I end up giving myself only twenty minutes. One of these days, I tell myself.

We've been having tub issues. The drain is clogged up to its neck. It had reached a point where there was no chance for water to escape in the traditional way. This was two days ago. Jill handled the phone calls and it was supposed to have been taken care of yesterday. Turns out it's worse than we thought. So a plumber would return today, between 7:30 and 8. I would have to set my alarm, which I did for 7 (I ususally set it for 7:45 and push snooze till 8:25 or so).

So NPR comes on at 7 and I jump up a bit. And then push snooze. I'll hear him knock, I say to myself, and go back to sleep. And then I realize it's cold. Ceiling fan blowing, window open; it's not supposed to be cold at the end of August. So I pull my down comforter up to my chin and return to sleep comfortable.

It works this way till about 7:20 and a couple of snooze sessions later. I jump out of bed and let the plumber in, a 55-year-old or so man from Haiti (which I discovered later by listening to him talk) who was holding a big orange toolbox and some sort of plumbing tool. He grunted some sort of what I believed to be a greeting and headed to the bathroom. I went back to bed to mind my business.

But it wasn't the alarm that would get me out of bed. All of a sudden, I felt a rush of wings just above my face, accept I didn't know it was wings at the time. They fanned me like one of those hand-held fan situations and I leaped from my skin, practically, swatting at the dark flying thing hovering over me. That fucking moth!

I saw it last week. Then I didn't see it. I saw it yesterday morning. Then I didn't see it. Out of sight out of mind does not work with this species of insect or bird or flying mammal or whatever the hell it is.

I jumped out of bed and grabbed the copy of my Village Voice that was on the floor. The unwieldy news magazine is difficult to kill things with so, of course, I missed every opportunity to end the moth's life. It got away from me again.

So I'm flying about my room, having left briefly to brew some coffee, searching for the elusive animal fan. My coffee's ready. The plumber is making noise. And I still have to go to work.

Now the plumber asks me if I've been to the beach. Small talk? Hell no, it's cold. But he tells me that sand seems to be the culprit and the snake won't even work. So he's now in the basement, having taken all of his tools with him. I went down there, which was probably a mistake because my overactive imagination and penchant for crime dramas will surely haunt me one night in the dark and I will imagine all sorts of corpses coming alive. But that's not for now.

The tub will be fixed and the moth lives.