yaaaarrr, shiver me--oh christ, I'm dying!

Ever since moving into this apartment we haven't had good luck with the hot water. In fact, we even complained and had the repair guy drop by to check out why we weren't getting any hot water. He checked it out and determined that, actually, we had hot water, it just took fifteen minutes of running the faucet for it to kick in. You're at the end of the line on this side of the building, he told us, you just have to be patient. But just to appease us, he said that he'd bump up the heater temperature a couple of degrees to make it easier on us. Thanks, guy.

And that worked for a while. Sure, sometimes we had to run the shower for five or ten minutes to get the hot water to make an appearance--sometimes merely lukewarm. But hey, we're no wusses. We can handle little hardships. Even when we lost power from the ice storm a couple weeks ago and had to shower in complete darkness for a day we didn't really get upset. Showering by tealight isn't so bad, anyway. It's just like our ancestors the pioneers used to do it, and you don't hear them whining.

But tonight we hit a new low. We came back from the gym and tried, unsuccessfully, to coax hot water out of the shower for two hours. Nada. And it wasn't the kind of 'nada' that you can just suck it up for, and take a few quick breaths, and power your way through. No, this was freezing cold water, and not a drop of warmth in sight.

As we were not prepared to die of hypothermia, we took a page from the pioneers' book (the one besides the Bible) and boiled water on the stove, mixing it with the frigid tap water in a giant soup pot and juice pitcher. A few quick douses and quick soaping technique carried us through. It was a bit of work, but I've never felt so satisfied with being clean.

Though it wasn't as awful as it sounds, nothing is going to stop me from tearing the apartment office staff a new one first thing tomorrow. And if they give me lip, I'll kick their injun asses--pioneer-style.