This Side Up

Today I woke up- as per usual to the sound of people hacking away at some wall or other. Got on my laptop, started IMing people until randomly the power shut off. "Not that switch!" Someone yells. Power back on...I explain to the people I'm talking to that I would probably lose power again soon. Power off. "Not that one either!" This repeats several times until they say "That one!" I find that they have turned the basement power off, which includes the internet. Oh well, I take it in stride. It's a nice day, I'll go hang out with a friend.

I wander over across the hall where I knew there would be a basket of clean clothes. Instead I find a man taking the comic books off the shelf of a bookcase in an otherwise barren room. "Quite a project," I say, looking around, not knowing the extent of how it really was. I also inquired as to why he turned the power off, but he had no clue, not being part of the group that was responsible for that. In search of my clothes I followed him down the hall to another room. This room contains a bed that is stacked high with furniture in front of it, and baskets of stuff on top. I spied my clothes at the back of the mess, but not being able to reach them I retreated back into my room and grabbed the last clean outfit I had.

Out for the day I missed all the activity going on. When I returned home I made a beeline for my laptop, only to realize the internet was still not working despite the power being back on. I headed to the source, the office, but stacked in front of the office was a piano, a couch, two chairs, a table, two lamps and three bags filled with who knows what junk. I use the couch to vault over the piano and lamps, stepping carefully over the bags to reach the computer and modem, both of which are unplugged. Staring at the mess of cords on the floor, I decide to give up on that, and vault back over the piano and back up to my room.

As I sit in my room, my mother knocks on my door looking for a space to sit, since the rest of the house other than my room and two bathrooms has been taken over. I had no choice but to let her in, and once we were sharing the small space that was my bedroom (which the builders had already started to pile what little i had into a box so they could do electrical work) she felt obligated to make conversation. Forced out of my own room in search of somewhere I could sit without being bothered I ended up in the abandoned room across the hall which only contained a bed frame, and which I recently learned would be my new sleeping space for the next week (I would get a mattress on the floor.) Turning the doorknob, a piece of metal sprung out and a loose spring stuck out of the handle. So I sat against the dirty wall and thought.

I had an idea—I went to grab my violin. Violins were portable, and self contained. I even knew which box my music was in. All excited, I took it out and tuned it, started to play, and then realized my fingernails were way too long. Slightly downcast, I went in search of nail clippers. First I checked the boxes in my mother’s room where they had demolished her bathroom and left all the cabinet items in shopping bags—no luck. I knew I had taken the ones that used to be in my case with me to camp, and that my suit case, still unpacked, was in the room down the hall, so I checked that out knowing it was probably a lost cause.

Indeed, the mountain of stuff had only grown—two mattresses, one cabinet, and one bookshelf blocked access to a mound of books, clothes, suitcases, backpacks and other paraphernalia. No way I was getting in there right now. Finally my mother was kind enough to help out, restart the internet and find a pair of nail clippers. I played violin for a while, we went out for dinner, and when we returned we set out on a search and rescue mission for urgent and important items. We crawled around mattresses, over bags and boxes and retrieved clothes and textbooks for the next few days. So as I sit here typing, most of this has been resolved, though I still have to move out of my room. I can’t wait until I go off to camp again.


Sachi