House of Cards

As some of you may recall, I work in a beat-down old house on our campus. Trashy fraternity houses have seen better days even. It is on the "condemned - do not repair" list on our campus. Yes, you read that correctly. It's a shitty place. Literally. We had a sewage leak at one point in our basement. Nothing says shitty like a wading pool of raw sewage.

We always joke that our house is a breeding ground for a new age plague. It sucks to be right sometimes. Almost everyone was out today because of illnesses. We have 13 employees and only 7 of us were there today (4 of which were sick or getting sick). I think I work in the Portal to the Nexus of Hell. Otherwise known as the White Sickly Elephant on Campus that No One Notices. My home away from home. It even has a tub in it. Yeah, a nasty old bath tub. Jealous?

I was talking with HH about The House one day. I was actually impressed that in my 2.5 years there, I'd never really noticed any bugs or spiders lurking. Seemed odd for an old house. She looks at me matter-of-factly and says "that's because they know better not to come in here." Wow. How true that is. Even the vermin have half a mind to steer clear. Who's the unevolved ones here?

There's also another mutation going on in our halls. The house breeds the contemptuous, the catty, and the eccentric. The exhaust of its furnace breath is a slow poison, and like the Joker villain, so do we have our own irradiated cadre of malcontents. You've already met Blurt McLoud. There's also Mean Face. She's like Two-Face, Jekyl and Hyde, and the borderline woman from Fatal Attraction rolled into one. Only she doesn't need to drink a potion to turn into Ms. Hyde. Oppositely, when she doesn't take her lithium, the Portal to the Nexus of Hell breaks loose. Her stare rivals Medusa. Her comments bite like serpetine hair. Her contempt for humanity is revealed. This woman can be a super beyotch, and her venomous strike comes from the shadows. She is a viper that cannot be charmed. I've tried to kill her with kindess. Her mutation is too evolved.

So I write this now from the throes of an illness that hath no name. I have blown my nose two thousand times and consumed eight gallons of orange juice. Between the two activities, I have likely killed and stripped more trees than a rain forest slasher. But I write this post to share the fruits of my labor with you -- and perhaps as my final entry, for I may in the middle of the night, sneeze my heart out. Literally.

And yet if I do survive another night, I must once again face down The House, that messy house of cards that, despite all of it flaws, just won't fall down.

4 comments:

Bubz The Troll said...

Try this affirmation anytime you feel like you're coming down with a cold or infection. "I am completely healthy." Repeat it to yourself in sets of 3 up to 39 times. Within a few hours you won't have any symptoms. I use it whenever I get a sore throat, runny nose, or touch of ear infection. It works. Of course it only works of things that your body can naturally fight off anyway. This just speeds up the process.

Unknown said...

Yes, I remember touring that abode that just won't quit when I was out there and wondering just how long the University was going to mistreat its award-winning advising staff! It's not fair!

Loved the "biting like serpentine hair" imagery too. :)

Get better soon. And I highly- HIGHLY recommend Airborne tablets.

Anonymous said...

I've never been inside the your office building, and I use that phrase loosely, but considering it's in worse shape than the roach infested and asbestos filled psych building I have an ugly mental picture in my head.

Maybe the cold I'm coming down with is some sort of sympathy illness, like my brain psychically sensed your plague or something.

Remember, Nyquil is the best friend your sickly seven dollars can buy!

Anonymous said...

I have visited The (Crack) House. My darlin' speaks the truth. I did at one point refer to it as "endearing" (picture a precious little hutch in the corner of your hardwood floored office), but in this case I think the negatives outweigh the positives. Examples: The grad student offices stashed in a dingy basement with low clearance. The wheelchair entrance that requires students to enter the building through the garage Nothing but the finest for those responsible for our future!