Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Down in the dumps on a dog-day afternoon

We have been having some problems with the tenants on the ground floor of our building. The two girls that live there are most likely college students who very much enjoy loud music, at all times of the day; cigarettes of all sorts and kinds; and having loads of undesireable males over, at all hours. This was not really a problem until the weekend just gone, when one of their parties got slightly out of hand (it must have), and the downstairs window was slightly smashed, and cigarette butts were scattered through our downstairs foyer. So what was left resembled a war zone, and the girls still haven't cleaned it up. During the day yesterday, I got myself all pumped to take the girls on, and demand that they stop with the music at 3am, and clean up after themselves when they break stuff in a shared area of the building. I would have been polite, articulate, and as friendly as possible.

But coming home last night, I caught a glimpse of one of the girls that lives there. Mouth puckered up like a cat's bottom, skanky brown hair plastered to her head, and scrawny long legs in tight stretch jeans. Even with my master ninja moves, I knew she'd be well able to kick my ass. So I kept walking past the apartment and onto the convenience store to buy milk. I had hoped she'd be gone back inside by the time I returned. And she was but, just as I was about to climb the stairs to my building, I realised that two of the ugliest men EVER were visiting the girls, and were walking in just ahead of me. Ugh. So I figured that any encounter between me and the downstairs tenants would have to wait another day. At least they didn't play any loud music last night; I think that would have just about broke my spirit.

So I walked inside my apartment, grateful that I didn't have to have any fights. And I sniffed the air, took one look at Sarah's dog and said to him "What have you done, and Where have you done it?!". The smell was positively awful. And there in the corner of our TV room was the biggest dump I have ever seen come out of a dog. It smelled bad and it looked worse. I can only assume that Chaz felt better after having deposited it there. In any case, he was certainly feeling embarrassed because he avoided me like the plague. I was not in the mood to look at him anyway. And to make matters slightly worse, Sarah was not going to be home until 8.30pm, so I would have to clean it up. Where to even start with that?

I managed to hold my breath long enough to walk past the mess on the floor and open the TV room windows to try and air the place. Fortunately the smell had not drifted down to my bedroom, so I hung out down that end of the house, to contemplate a cleaning strategy. Just then, Lexie came home and I was able to share my discovery with her. Together we devised a plan to clean the room, with me as the 'shoveller', and her as the 'cleaner and deodoriser' backing me up. I gagged so many times that I nearly had to vomit in Lexie's bathroom. I had to leave the room a few times too, and only after covering the pile with my own baby talcum powder, was I able to hold my breath long enough to finish my part of the job for Lexie to come in and complete it. We lit every single fragrant candle in the house after that, and tried to mask whatever was left of the odour. By the time Sarah got home, the mess was cleaned up, the odour was neutralised, and the cleaning crew had recovered. But neither Lexie nor myself were talking to that stupid dog. We told Sarah that whatever had come out of Chaz was not healthy and was also not allowed to happen again. On my way out the door this morning, I told the dog that if I came home to a gift like that again, I was sending him back to Wisconsin by Fedex. And I meant it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Didn't you say to the dog "Chaz, want the toilet? Toilet? Quick".

Works for Barkley.

As for the scary girly men downstairs, leave shampoo in their letterbox. :)

haha, reminds me of the customers at the video store who admit to washing only when their skin goes flaky.

ewww!!!

Anonymous said...

phill wants to know (in the nicest possible way of course and purely for the advancement of a better understanding of the reasons why 'man' has reached such a high level of maturity) how big her hooters are !!

Anonymous said...

"Mouth puckered up like a cat's bottom, skanky brown hair plastered to her head, and scrawny long legs in tight stretch jeans."

And, the problem is???

Would you like some good advice? Forget about the shampoo in the letterbox. How about leaving a parcel of "Doggy Doodle Fresh" air freshener. YUCK!

Unknown said...

Lexie said we should take some of the 'product' on the dustpan and schmear it on the girls apartment front door. She was obviously as testy as I was that night.

And in answer to your question Phil, no she is as flat as a pancake. No wonder she has a surly expression all day, poor pet.

kilabyte said...

I'm glad the boys have been able to cut thru the psychological mumbo-jumbo and get right to the heart of the matter .... by the way .... do they do house videos?????