Tap-tap-tap (that’s the sound of me working in my Mom’s kitchen on my laptop). Tap-tap-tap.

Damn, I forgot how LOUD apartment life is. Why, I can hear people walking around, I can hear them taking a shower. Odd how they have a shower right above my mom’s kitchen. And even stranger how the water sounds like it’s right inside the walls.

You’d think that the workers would’ve insulated those pipes as a sound barrier because that’s just annoying.

Tap-tap-tap.

Okay, now I’m really on edge (not that I wasn’t before). This is just ridiculous.

Ignore it. Ignore it. Pull out something from the Buddhism to give me peace. I know, the Third Noble Truth: Suffering will cease when a person can rid himself of all desires.

But my desire is to END that freaking water.

Drip-drip.

Huh. That’s kind of weird.

Hey, look, I can see the drywall seam. Hey, the paint on the wall is bubbling. Where’d all the water on the floor come from?

You see, I was right. Yay, I was right! There is water in the walls…and the ceiling, and the floor.

Was is the drip becoming a stream? Why is the drywall beginning to bow?

Quick, call someone, I thought. No problem, every time I have a problem, I call the one person that can always help me.

Damn it — my Mom isn’t answering the phone.

Okay, think. What would SHE do?

Would she cry? No, I don’t think so. Watch TV? No — simply because her TV is so damn small (seriously, is that a Nintendo Gameboy she watches?). She’d call the landlord.

I call the Landlord.

“What apartment are you?”

“601,” I reply.

“You’re parked in the wrong spot.”

“My ceiling is raining.”

“You were in 73 and you should’ve been in 74. The person from 73 had to park in YOUR spot last night.”

“Flood.”

“Those spots are there for a reason.”

“Water.”

“Next time you’ll be towed.”

I now have my umbrella out. Finally, she comes to the apartment.

“That’s a lot of water.”

“Yes.”

“There shouldn’t be a lot of water.”

“No.”

Turns out that someone had a washing machine above…and the hose burst. Lots and lots of water.

That wasn’t in pipes.

Buddhism never taught me how to deal with exploding washers.

Screw it — I’m becoming a Muslim.