I went for an evening run for about an hour, and returned to my dorm, sweaty and quickly getting chilly; it's 36 degrees at the moment, and while I was plenty warm while still moving, slowing down was lethal. I unlocked my door using the key I'd removed from my key ring, as I always do when I go running, and turned on the heater in my room so it would be nice and toasty when I emerged from the shower, toweled off and cozy in my bathrobe. I stripped off my clothes, cranked the hot water up as high as it would go, and stepped in. I felt blissful as I let the water do an initial rinse, blissful as I reached for the shampoo, and blissful as I rubbed it into my hair. I felt less blissful as the water suddenly began to cool. And cool. And cool. Within ten seconds, I was cowering as far from the jet of icy water as I could with shampoo suds running down my face. I waited for a few minutes, and when this produced no favorable result, tried turning the water on and off a few times. Nothing worked. Somehow, the water heater intended for who-knows-how-many of my fellow dorm-mates, had cut out.
Had my head not been saturated in shampoo, things may have been different, but as it was, I felt I had to at least rinse the suds out. There was no way I was getting back under that Arctic stream, however, as at this point my teeth were chattering and I was starting to shiver. Instead, I wrapped a towel around myself, twisted my soapy hair up into a clip, and filled my electric teapot. It took ten minutes to boil two pots of water (turns out a watched pot does boil, it just takes a really, really long time). Adding some cold water from the tap rewarded me with about 3/4" of tepid water at the bottom of the tub. In this, I performed some admirable contortions that would be the envy of any yogi and managed to rinse the soap from my hair and from wherever else it had dripped while I was hopping from one foot to the other, trying to keep warm. The heater, which does a very nice job of making me feel warmer when I am dry, turned out to be not so great when I was wet, as it blew gusts of barely warm air that made me feel even colder.
Hair rinsed, I felt a bit calmer. I put my hair, which was matted enough to have given Anthony some competition during his dreadlock days, into a towel, and called my friend Michael who lives a floor below me. (Keep in mind that the last time I saw Michael was about a month ago, just before we both left for the winter break.) "Hi!" he said happily, no doubt looking forward to a chat. "Do you have hot water?" I interrupted. "Uh, hang on," he replied, and there followed the sound of running water. "Yeah," he returned after a moment. "Totally hot. I assume you don't, and you discovered this at the most inopportune moment?" I hate Michael. "Yes," I began, "I got back from a run and I was freezing and then when I was all soapy..." "Put on a robe and get down here," he said. I love Michael.
About 90 seconds later, I arrived, clutching my key ring, a conditioner bottle, and hairbrush, and he let me in and pushed me straight into the bathroom. "I warmed up the pipes for you," he said, "and I'll make you some tea for when you get out." God, I love Michael. I applied conditioner to my head of sailor's knots and they dissolved nicely. Then I joined Michael for tea and a chat while my fingernails slowly turned from blue back to pink.
After about ten minutes, Michael headed out the door to go to a meeting. Feeling that life was pretty good after all, I headed up the stairs, still wrapped in my bathrobe with my hair in a towel. At my door, I fumbled for my key. And fumbled. And then it hit me: I couldn't find my key because my key wasn't there. It was not on my key ring because I never put it back after my run. It was sitting uselessly on my desk, where I'd tossed it pre-shower(s).
In my building, lock-outs are no big deal. I've done it several times (sometimes on the same day). You simply walk down to the front desk, tell them your room number, and sign out a key which you must return within 30 minutes. Never, however, have I done it in a bathrobe and Uggs with streaming hair. Michael was already off to his meeting and my cell phone was in my room. I have no one's phone numbers committed to memory - no one in the New York area at least. I briefly considered sitting outside his door until he returned, but I had no idea how long that would take. I was not eager to go down to the front desk myself. You see all kinds of eccentric people in this city, but I was not prepared to be one of them.
Luckily, it sounded as though my neighbor was home. I knew her name, Corrine, because it was posted on her door, but I'd never actually spoken with her - ships passing in the night, I guess. The time had come, I decided, to change that.
Corrine, as it turns out, is a lovely person. She had never locked herself out of her room before, dressed or undressed, but she was delighted to dash down to the front desk for me and returned in minutes brandishing a key. I have big plans to buy Corrine the chocolate she deserves. I thanked her profusely, and she replied brightly "Any time!" How often does she think I plan on doing this?
And now, near the bottom of my second mug of tea, with blow dried hair and wearing warm, dry clothes that provide decent coverage, I feel reflective. I'm not sure what the moral of the story is exactly, but I'm sure there is one.
No comments:
Post a Comment