Oct 21, 2008

coffee stain = no longer my problem

Sometimes when I look across the street at my old apartment building I miss something.

I don't know what.

Certainly not the space. That apartment was small.

I don't miss the luxuries - there were no luxuries. Just a scrub brush and big cake of soap (for cleaning the floors, the dishes, me - everything), and a window.

That one window. What a window.

And there was a bathtub - that, when you put a plank of wood across it (which, believe me, was already chained to the tub anyway) doubled as a table - if not and a bed (guest bed).

Yes.

I mean, no. It was not a great apartment. Not by any standard.

Though, as small as it was, it did have more closet space than I have here, currently, at my supposedly better, bigger apartment. But that's typical (nothing architecturally making any sense ever).

And I really don't miss the coffee stain (bad, grim, incredibly foretelling coffee stain) that - near the end of my experience at that worse, smaller apartment (across the street) - rolled down my east wall (my one east wall) and part of the ceiling, thereof.

That coffee stain (stain: millions of vertical lines saturating a ten by twelve foot wall) being the artwork of a one very special guest - was scrubbed off by me on a Sunday - only to return that very Monday (only slightly deterred).

There it was. The coffee stain - it was still there.

It turns out that, sometimes - paint has a memory.

Sometimes you can scrub and scrub - but a stain will keep coming back.

That, clearly, only paint would suffice - but at that point I didn't want to paint. Not anymore. Not there. Not at that apartment. Because I was moving.

So I washed it off. Or so I thought.

And it's funny because it was only one cup of coffee. If that. Probably not even that. I had been drinking from it (that particular cup of coffee) before my guest took it and, without any regard for anything - flung it (the cup with its hot contents) across the room (at my computer for some reason) and created the coffee stain (that I dealt with and lived with - for seven months) that is probably there still, to this very day.

It was a mess.

A real mess. A mess that reminded me - not daily (I didn't worry about it every day), but at least every few days - that some people may at any point fling anything across the room - at any time.

No, I don't miss the coffee stains streaking down my east wall - like so many candle wax (or is it blood) dripping type Halloween fonts (you know the ones) - employed by the covers of so many horror/monster magazines. A font that I always loved.

Just not as a stain. In my house.

Victoria works and occasionally blogs in Chicago..

2 comments:

  1. Did the coffee have toothpaste in it? Toothpaste stains are like Jason - never dead, just gone for a little while. Anyway, enjoyed the post. Hope your new digs are still treating you well.

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  2. You've got me searching the walls. I recently got around to wiping off a booger that someone sneezed on the bathroom wall. I don't think anyone else saw it, almost behind the radiator, but I saw it and would always say "I must get rid of that" but as soon as I'd washed my hands, I'd forget it was there.

    Now I'm worried it'll come back.

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