The Shotgun Toilet: An Alex and Beth Adventure

So, a couple of days ago, I noticed a strange sound emanating from our bathroom. I first assumed that it was construction. I mean, they’ve been “constructing” all semester long at unruly hours of the night, so why not put sheetrock in the apartment right above us at 3 a.m.? However, I decided that it did not sound like a nail gun, but really more like a metal bucket filled with screws and washers and nuts that someone was banging on the bathroom floor every thirty seconds. While this is truly what it sounds like, it is highly improbable because the only reason a neighbor would spend their time banging buckets of nuts on the floor is to annoy us and there are much better ways (as we shall see). So, after finally ruling out the bucket of nuts idea and actually convincing Alex that there was a noise, since he claimed he couldn’t hear it, we decided that it was the toilet. It sounds like the upstairs toilet is fixing to be flushed but then the operation is aborted. Again, it can’t possibly be a human doing this because it goes on ALL DAY and no one wants to annoy their neighbors so much that they don’t go to work or sleep. So, I did some research online….

It appears that our friendly neighborhood toilet has a case of (dun Dun DUN) the Phantom flush. It has something to do with the seal in the back and is easily fixable. However, being that our apartment runs like a public school system or an ill run company, the problem will not be fixed for the next few days, if our friend has even put a work order in for his apartment. Instead, our neighbor, whose bedroom is directly above ours, has decided to drown out the phantom flushing with his television. So last night, as I was laying in bed, trying to get some shuteye, I was wooed to sleep (more to annoyance) by some kind of African tribal flutes or Phil Collins or something of the sort. Note: I resorted to sleeping with earplugs. So, this is my rendition of the Sounds of the Most Ghetto Apartment Complex in the World, composed last night (an original composition by Bum):

Mumble
Mumble
Mumble
Scream
Flush
Mumble
Mumble
Flush
BANG
(silence)
Laughter
Mumble
Clap
FLUSH

All of this translates to me getting up in the wee hours of the morning and relocating to the teeny tiny love seat in our living room and Alex getting zero winks. I hope the problem gets fixed, so our neighbor can sleep without watching action movies all night. Unfortunately, I am pretty sure that you cannot submit a work order for someone else’s apartment, although I may try. Are we graduated so we can move yet?