Mañana

Claire is my roommate. Well, she was my roommate until just a few days ago. Sad. Claire and I were good roommates, teammates actually. Together we could accomplish a lot. Claire was good at some things, I was good at some things. We were a complementary couple. This was important as our apartment wasn’t new. Things broke a lot and it was cramped for storage space. We had to take turns taking care of the house. One of the things Claire was good at was fixing the flushing chain thing on the thing that attaches to the thing on the back of the toilet. Of course, one of the last things that happened before Claire left the house was that the thing that attaches to thing broke again. But this time it really broke, unfixable without a new part broke. That was Wednesday. Today is Monday. I’ll admit I was a waste of space on Thursday after a great going away party for Claire Wednesday night and waking up with her at 5:30 am to get her off to the airport. I went back to bed, slept in, got up, did the dishes and cleaned the house. I did teach for two whole hours in the afternoon too. So, Thursday it was my fault the toilet wasn’t fixed because I didn’t tell my landlord Gonzalo.

Sidenote on my landlord: Gonzalo is probably one of the nicest people in the universe, however not the quickest responding landlord. In fact, our neighbors call him “Mañana” to highlight his response of “Tomorrow,” he throws out to everything.

Well, back to the story. So, I looked for Mañana on Friday to no avail. Then finally on Saturday I saw him in the street, grabbed him and dragged him inside to show him my broken toilet. He seemed to be relieved by the fact that I could flush it even if it meant I had to put my hand in the tank to manually pull up the thing since the other thing was no longer attached to the thing. This time he didn’t throw out the standard, “mañana,” he normally does. No, this time he answered with a swift day after tomorrow. Well, what do you know here I am, the day after mañana still sticking my hand in the tank to flush. My hands are raw from washing them as if I’m scrubbing in for surgery after every flush. I’m now taking bets on when Gonzo will come by and fix the toilet. I think by Thursday.

Now that is pura vida.