What's your game?

Mold, music, and a couple of movies

We’ve certainly had an interesting few days. This may have been the worst Memorial Day weekend I’ve ever had. Warning: This is a really long post.

8:00 PM Wednesday: Gina is at her course, so she’s out of the house until Saturday afternoon. I stay with her at the hotel tonight, and we have a tasty dinner at Sam’s near Union Square someplace. |I plan to take advantage of the alone-time to play some games (mostly Wolfenstein and Battlefield), watch some scary movies (Panic Room, The Ring), and just lounge around the house.

7:00 AM Thursday: When I come to the house to change clothes, I smell some mold in my bathroom, and add “Clean the bathroom out!!” to my to-do list. Note the extra exclamation point, which really drives home the level of cleanliness I needed.

8:00 PM Thursday: Battlefield: 1942, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and the first 20 minutes of Panic Room occupy my evening. I conked out on the sofa before we even saw the bad guys. The mold smell is bad enough that I close the bathroom door when I go to sleep.

7:00 AM Friday: I shower in Gina’s bathroom. Mine makes me sneeze. I take some Sudafed and get ready for work. Welcome to my stuffy head, coughing nightmare. The sore throat makes its first appearance.

10:30 AM Friday: I’m already feeling better. Wow, I must have work-itis.

4:00 PM Friday: We leave early because it’s a holiday weekend. In the car on the way to Safeway, I have an epiphany, I realize that the mold and my sudden cold are probably related. I add a pair of rubber gloves, a breath mask, and some Claritin, and set to work cleaning. Rubber glove manufacturers need to make men’s sizes.

7:00 PM Friday: Scrubbing every surface in a bathroom is just how I figured I’d be spending a Friday night in my late 20s when I was in high school.

8:00 AM Saturday: This morning is worse than Friday. My bleach and water cleaning have done nothing. My paranoia increases, and I’m starting to think of last winter’s leaky roof. Did enough water get into the walls to start the mold growing? The mold-induced stuffy head and sneezing fits combine with my neighbor’s pounding stereo, to give me a top-class headache.

1:00 PM Saturday: Luckily, Gina’s sister Sheri called and needed help fixing her computer. During my chat with her, I realized that while I’d removed the shelves and mirror from the wall, there was one place in the bathroom I’d not looked; inside the toilet tank. Sure enough, there was our green, stinky culprit.

2:30 PM Saturday: Ten percent bleach, ninety percent water. That’s what you use to kill mold, and I went at the crud in the toilet tank with a vengence. All visible evidence of the mold was gone, but I could still smell it in my bathroom.

5:00 PM Saturday: I went to pick Gina up from her course. We picked up some food and came home, had fun for about five minutes playing “Name that bass line” and then watched a movie (Star Wars). Gina went to bed early, then I went to sleep in the upstairs room, which is the only mold-free area in the apartment. We figured the neighbors were having a party, which is ok. It would have been nice if they’d invited us.

1:00 AM Sunday: Pounding on the door does nothing. Beating the shit out of the wall garners no response. Calls, screams, and threats are ineffective. The music is relentless.

7:15 AM Sunday: The music’s still going. My nose has been blown so much that it’s raw and bleeding. My eyes are swollen, and I have to take my contacts out. They’re so read I look like pure evil.

9:00 AM Sunday: The beat pounds on. We leave for an 11:30 showing of X-Men 2 at the Metreon, about 10 blocks away. Staying in the apartment with the mold and the pounding bass is making us crazy. We eat a leisurely breakfast, then browse some shops and make fun of the tourists. We call Larry the landlord and let him know that there’s a problem.

2:00PM Sunday: The X-Men movie was actually pretty good. We decide not to do a ‘double feature’ at the multiplex beause we’re both too tired. We head back to the apartment to take naps, because neither of us slept well last night thanks to the endless bass line.

4:00 PM Sunday: Dear Lord, will it never stop? What kind of maniacs leave the radio on for 30 hours? Are they doing some sort of unholy psychedelic drug in there and are just starting to come down? Did they die with the radio on? What’s wrong with them?

5:00 PM Sunday: We have to do something. I trip the breaker at the meter downstairs, hoping that it won’t come back on when I turn it back on. The radio stays on. We’ve now heard 5 U2 songs.

7:00 PM Sunday: Did you know that there are really only about five different base lines in all pop songs? After a while they all sound the same. Gina and I start shouting just to shout. We can’t turn our music up loud enough to kill the bass. Larry is going to get his nephew to come over and go into their apartment to turn it off.

9:00 PM Sunday: Thank God. The music’s finally off. The silence is enough to bring tears to my eyes. It could just be the mold.

10:13 AM Monday: Larry comes by to check on the mold. My eyes are so bloodshot that it looks like I’ve been on a four-day cocaine binge. We break the seal on the bathroom door for the first time in two days. The bleach must be working, I can’t smell mold anywhere. Of course, I can’t smell anything else either.

2:00 PM Monday: We cruise over to the Metreon again, this time to see Bruce Almighty.

4:30 PM Monday: Liar, Liar was much funnier.

11:12 PM Monday: The mold isn’t gone totally, but it’s much better. I feel better, Gina’s sore throat is going away. The fucking pounding bass is gone. I can’t wait to go to work tomorrow.