The move is finally done; The American Jerk has a new home office, one without vermin or surly, non-English-speaking neighbors. However, since the new Home Office is located across the street from a Salvation Army, I have to deal with surly, English-speaking vermin in the form of winos, who, fortified by a hot cup of soup, find the unlit base of my front porch an inviting place to drain the used Mad Dog to make room for the new Mad Dog. I now know what my neighbors must feel like when they look out the window.
I would be upset by this, but as a frequent nocturnal porch urinater, I have no moral high ground to stand on. However, as the owner of the porch, I have the literal high ground, which means that on those occassions when my urge matches a wino’s, he scurries off, believing that my porch is retaliating against him. In just a month, my home has become an urban legend to the homeless, like government brain transmissions that can be blocked by a tinfoil hat. Or soap.
Settling in at the new Home Office has been difficult. Part of why this shitty rag’s been quiet is that we’ve only had Internet for the computers for the past week. We knew when we bought the place that there wasn’t any easy way to get a network connection into the office, so I did a little research and decided that the best bet would be to get Linksys Wireless N technology. It’s a new standard in wireless that, according to Linksys, is simply blistering. And having experienced it firsthand, it is blistering. Just like a hooker with a runny chancre and no condom.
The two $120 Wireless N adapters negotiated with the $150 Wireless N router like an unfrozen caveman and an underaged deaf autistic spastic kid in a helmet trying to get served Johnnie Walker Gold by Batman’s butler: “Sir, while I impressed at your impressive taste in asking me to serve you with an IP address, I’m afraid I cannot oblige you until you cease and desist in drooling and waving your dirty, uncircumcised MAC address about. And as for you, sir: I would love to meet your request, but I must assume that ‘Unnngh’ means that you intend to defecate on the floor of our nice, clean workgroup. Perhaps you gentlemen would be happier with the quality of service at the Bloody Modem Club? Simply pass the Salvation Army and then take a left in front of the Urinating Porch…”
My computer wouldn’t even talk to the fucking router, and my girl’s would talk to it right up until the moment I tried to start watching streaming video, upon which it would run off like it it was showing me a porno mag just as the teacher walked into the room. Which would be kinda funny if I weren’t trying to download teacher MILF porn at the time.
So last week I finally broke down and paid the Nice Electrican Man to come to the house and put network jacks in the walls so I could finally masturbate again (I’ve had high speed Internet for so long that the only thing I can do left-handed is crank it, and I can only do that because I can’t operate a mouse left-handed). Oh yeah, and so I could finally update the Web site, which I was completely focused on until the moment every pipe in the house froze up like Bill Buckner’s knees.
Now… it’s not like I live in a backwater shithole like Nashville or anything, where a half-inch of snow is a once-in-a-decade apocalypse and getting someone to serve you a beer without telling you all about their day first is harder than redefining pi. I live in Boston, where one would think a builder would understand that between December and March, it often goes weeks without going above freezing. And yet these selfsame fuckstain builders decided that, in a Boston winter climate, it would be a good idea to expose their pipes to the elements… which is bad enough to watch happen when the winos do it, but at least I don’t have to spend thirty years paying them a million dollars to be a part of the experience.
So when the pipes froze, I, of course, called Roto Rooter, because I figured that since my name was “Rob Reuter”, thirty years of being mockingly called “Roto Rooter” meant that those fuckers owed me. Their billing department has a differing opinion and a team of lawyers. Anyway…
The Roto Rooter man (Who, unlike me in kindergarten, didn’t cry when he was called that) checked the pipes, went out to his truck, and returned with a 320-watt transformer with two jumper cables attached, which he attached to my pipes and then plugged into one of the wall sockets until the pipes gave it up twenty minutes later.
The Roto Rooter man Abu Ghraib’ed my pipes. Which wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as it sounds until I had to write the $300 check. On the plus side, the pipes were cleared. On the minus side, I know for a fact that the next time those fuckers freeze, I’m gonna be on the phone with Homeland Security saying, “Yeah, those bastard pipes know where the nuke is. Send Jack Bauer. The pipes killed his wife, too. Raped her before she died. Tell him to hurry. Actually, wait – what’s his hourly rate?”
So anyway. Long story short, everything’s working here, which should make more regular updates a realistic possibility. Stick with me, and I’ll write something longer than my name on a grossly inflated maintenance check.
Okay,
Rob
Postscript: On the minus side, the Roto Rooter man told me that the pipes would be less likely to freeze if I flushed the toilet more often, so say goodbye to the Myth of the Urinating Porch. On the plus side, the computer room overlooks the front door, so say hello to the Legend of the Masturbating Deck…
[tags]home repair, home ownership, Salvation Army, Roto Rooter, frozen pipes, homeless, winos, dark humor[/tags]
Finally! I wont even mention the fact that it\’s mildly amusing… fuck.