The Second Flood (well, actually it's our third)

Well, I can check off one more experience they warned us about at training. Cat and I woke up this morning at 7:37 to a very angry neighbor pounding on our door. Our kitchen was flooding and the water had made its way into the apartment below us. A bit of background for those who don’t know: the cold water turns off every night at 11 and doesn’t come on again until 6 AM. Knowing this, we don’t usually even try the faucet at night, or we immediately turn it off again when no water comes out. But it only takes one time forgetting!

Back to the angry neighbor. He was just screaming at us in Russian, which we might have understood more of if we weren’t still half asleep and feeling seriously disoriented. But we got all our towels, the sheets from our beds, and the tubs we wash clothes in and started mopping it all up. It was clearly not good enough for him, though. He just kept making wringing motions and yelling the Russian word for ‘fast’. After a little while of this we got fed up and just kicked him out.

About 10 minutes later Giyanna, the maintenance man from ASSOL, showed up to check it out and help us. I had just let him in and the doors were still unlocked and our pissed off neighbor stormed back in. He just stood for a minute in our hallway watching us work and then starts shouting ‘fast’ at us again. When Cat stood up to try to talk to him he got even more worked up and started yelling “Work, work! Fast! Work!” (all in Russian, of course). We kept saying “We know, we work. Yes. Fast” but he was really starting to piss us off. Finally I just opened the door and gestured for him to leave, but he wouldn’t budge. I just kept telling him to get out. In the meantime, I had been using our handheld broom and dustbin to scoop up the lake in our kitchen. As I was trying to make him leave I gestured with my left hand and accidentally flung some water from the broom in his face! I can’t even describe the look of death he gave me, but I didn’t know how to explain that it was an accident. Something tells me it wouldn’t have made much of a difference at that moment anyway, but still.

So he finally left and we finished cleaning it all up. Alevtina is going down to check out the damage in the apartment and we have to figure out how to pay for it. And I’m thinking I’m going to have one of the English teachers write a note for me in Russian, apologizing and explaining that it was an accident, for what it’s worth. This is just the biggest pain ever. But it sure makes an effective wake-up call!