Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

Today was nightmare day on the T. The Red Line was running late this morning, and then tonight I was running for the train at an open-air station and it just drove away. It was barely 5 degrees out, with a windchill twenty degrees below that, and the conductor couldn’t wait fifteen seconds for me to reach the door.

So I was faced with the choice of waiting ten minutes for another train, or spending an equal amount of time walking home in the cold. I decided to walk. Fortunately I made it home with all appendages intact, and decided to take a nice warm bath.

It sounded so simple at the time. There was this annoying car alarm going off in the courtyard, but otherwise it was just me and The Hobbit. Then the car alarm went up about a hundred decibels and I realized it wasn’t a car alarm, it was the fire alarm.

So I got out of the tub with my wet hair and put my cold clothes back on and went down to the foyer to shiver with some of the other human residents and a few cats. Word was it was just a burst radiator, so the evacuation was half-hearted at best. Considering the weather, we’d be better off inside a burning building than out in the wind.

So the firemen left without turning off the alarm. They said to call the management company to do it. I went back upstairs and resumed my bath, and eventually the alarm stopped. The heat is even still on, despite the exploding radiator problem. It’s not doing much good against the wind that blows straight through the walls, but you can’t have everything. At least I have my fingers and toes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2003 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Boston. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.