View from a Wolf

A couple of days ago, magic came alive, right there in my apartment.

After my daily shower and shave ritual, I made a trip to the main bedroom (it’s a one-bedroom apartment), there to peruse my wardrobe choices.  As is my wont, the decision came down to the usual: a pair of jeans that were hanging right where I left them, puddled on the floor.

Only this time “puddle” was a little too literal:  the jeans were soaking wet.  And it was time for me to leave for work.

I held them up and stared at them in disbelief.  They weren’t dripping, but they were heavy with moisture.

I looked down at the floor, which appeared to be bone-dry.  Then back at the jeans.  Then, the floor.

I blinked, as a dozen possibilities flitted across my early morning brain, wayward moths struggling to find the nearest candle of logic.

Years ago, I learned that my brother-in-law, in a stupid state of drunkenness got out of bed and used his TV set as a urinal.

I sniffed the pants.  No untoward smells.  And besides:  I hadn’t had anything to drink the night before.   The visual I had, of getting out of bed and taking a whizz on just those pants, stayed with me.

I sniffed them again, just in case.  Then I hung them on the shower rod and sniffed them again (about three times I think).  And then I washed my hands, because ew.

Back to the bedroom.  I moved a few things around to see if I could see what else was wet.

Nothing.  Everything was dry.

Could this be one of those things, like spontaneous combustion, where someone is burnt to a crisp, while everything around him is unharmed?   Only the opposite, with water?  Could my jeans have become spontaneously drowned?

I remember repeating “holy shit” and “that’s so weird!” to myself, several times over and over, as I picked out another pair of jeans (along with shirt, etc.) and headed out the door to work.

Maybe it was a spiritual thing, and an evil ghost came into my apartment and just did that one thing, just to mess me up.  If so, it worked.

Occam’s razor said “what are you?  An idiot?”

My brain puzzled it out for the entire day.  I decided some more sleuthing was needed.

After getting home, I started pulling everything apart:  I dragged the dresser out and checked behind it:  no water at all.  Curiouser and curiouser.

It wasn’t until I checked a cardboard box and saw that its underside was damp that I finally realized, with relief, that my pants weren’t magic at all.   Why my brain didn’t immediately go to that explanation in the first place (Occam’s razor again) eludes me.

I mean, I still didn’t have an explanation for it:  I didn’t spill any water in the room – since I don’t generally bring water of any kind in there anyway.   When I told the superintendent about it, he suggested that maybe there was a leak from the central air conditioning ducts – but that’s at the other side of the room.

It was he who suggested I pull stuff out from my closet.  And oh man – was that ever a mess.  I’ve been meaning to declutter my apartment for a while now – pulling all of that stuff from the floor of my closet out was the kick in the head I needed to get started on that right away.  There were bags of documents in there, wayward shirts that hadn’t seen the light of day in some time (which wouldn’t be worn anytime soon – until they’d paid a visit to the dry cleaners at least), and all kinds of sundry odds and ends.  Sure enough:  some of the bottom stuff had gotten wet as well.

The super decided that someone’s bathtub was leaking.  After some investigation he found that my upstairs neighbour’s tub had a loose soap fixture, and so with every shower, some water made its way down to my closet.

Mystery solved.

I’m a little worried about my sanity however.