Happy New Year...?

Happy 2016, I suppose...

Most of the headlines on the news sites I torture myself reading (see links to the left) portend that 2016 will be yet another "Year of Suck," with a capital "S," to the bajillionth power.  You may ask if I enjoy inflicting psychological pain on myself--and why don't I find more positive stuff to expose myself to?

It just doesn't work that way.  Not for me, anyway.  There's a great book from 2009 by Barbara Ehrenreich called Bright-Sided.  If you get the time or inclination to check it out, it spells out perfectly my entire attitude towards those in the whole "think positive" camp.  It's kind of like The Matrix.  Once you've swallowed the red pill, you can't really "un-know" there's a load of impending or current "suck-dom" out there.

Anyway, yeah.  It's been a bizarre last couple weeks to say the least.  Our apartment was overrun last week.  My neighbor, overdue in her pregnancy, went into labor on new year's day.  While at the hospital, her five and eight year-old sons spent the day in our cramped quarters happily destroying Christmas toys with our seven, five and two year old.

In the midst of the mayhem, a teenage family friend randomly dropped by to visit and "help" (play loud video games).  He pretty much ate everything in the house that wasn't frozen or nailed down.  At least he distracted the kids from their gleeful orgy of destruction for a few minutes here and there.

During all this, our downstairs neighbors--a young couple and their two large dogs--burst hysterically into our apartment.  "Oh my God, our apartment is flooding with sewage again!"  The more the merrier...come on in!

While frantically leaving voice mails for the (closed) leasing office and waiting for emergency maintenance to show up (several hours), Sewage Trauma Neighbors brought up the pots and pans they'd been cooking lunch in before being rudely interrupted by crap exploding from their walls. Oh, and dog food and water bowls that our two year-old found absolutely amazing.  In the tornadic chaos, Video Game "Helper" Dude didn't mind if he did help himself to a good portion of Sewage Trauma Neighbors' lunch, either.

As the exhausting afternoon blurred into an evening haze of refereeing kid's arguments ("He mashed his yellow Play-Doh into my Iron Man transformer, and now Iron Man won't make 'swoosh' sounds anymooooore!!!"), mopping up kid messes, fixing busted toys, scrubbing dog food off the walls, listening to Sewage Trauma Neighbors' tales of woe, and politely dodging the slobbery affections of their hyper-friendly dogs, there came a knock at the door...

Why, it was the semi-homeless friend of Giving Birth Neighbors--you know, the neighbors not home because they were at the hospital having a baby?  Giving Birth Neighbors weren't home...because they were having a baby.  Did I mention Giving Birth Neighbors weren't home?  Semi-Homeless Dude was at a loss.  Reeking of stale weed, Semi-Homless Dude had no couch to surf on while Giving Birth Neighbors weren't home--so could he maybe, like, crash in our spare room for a while?  I mean, like, just 'til Giving Birth Neighbors got back, or something.  Was that okay?

Well, why the hell not?  Oh, and was Semi-Homeless Dude hungry, or anything?  Because we had a couple frozen fish sticks left in the bottom of the freezer that Video Game "Helper" Dude left untouched.  Come on in!  Good thing Semi-Homeless Dude showed up when he did, too, because he discovered our hallway bathroom toilet was all clogged up, man!  Could it be, like, plunged, or something...? 

The mention of a clogged can, however, wound up being a PTSD trigger for Sewage Trauma Neighbors--because they immediately launched into a rant worthy of Hitler on crack.  We all needed to band together and sue the apartment complex, Sewage Trauma Neighbors insisted, because faulty, neglected plumbing, goddammit!!

Reeling, in the back of my mind, that old Elvis song, "In the Ghetto," played over and over and over...

Happy New Year, indeed.