Stealth closet finds Fuse-less home in geneva
At the airport, waiting for Nazy’s flight, I was thinking about her forthcoming visit.
“My apartment,” I thought, “is tidy and neat.” (I didn’t reflect on the fact that tidy and neat was a recent development. A development, in fact, related to Nazy’s visit.) “It’s very well-located and great for someone like me - someone who works during the day and never cooks. But it won’t be acceptable for Nazy. She’ll expect a place we can actually live in. I wonder if the stove works?”
Nazy, typically bubbly and cheerful, arrived on-time and (apparently well-rested) I shared my concerns with her on the taxi into the city.
“Don’t worry, Dan. I will set it up.”
“There isn’t even space to set your suitcase down, my dear.”
I expeditiously routed Nazy past the Pussy Cat Nightclub (adjacent to the apartment) and whisked her upstairs. Amazed that she was able to find floor space for her two suitcases, I suggested that we go for a walk to ‘see the city’.
“This apartment is sooo cute, Dan.” Nazy observed.
“Cute? Yes. Roomy? No. Let’s go see the city..”
Nazy was hungry. Naturally, she wanted a salad.
“It’s Sunday,” I explained. “In Geneva. Everything is closed.”
“We can go to McDonalds,” Nazy replied.
“You must be really hungry,” I said. “The flight must have disrupted her neurons,” I thought.
With sustenance demands satisfied, we continued our stroll around the city. It wasn’t quite sunny, but Nazy had her trade-marked smile.
We ended up back at the apartment, where Nazy transformed into Inspector-General mode. I expected some of the comments:
“Did you consider cleaning up? This place is dusty.”
“Did I consider cleaning up? It’s the only thing I thought about for the last 10 days,” I replied. “I didn’t want to..”
“You’re just like Darius. You didn’t want to? What?”
“I didn’t want to let you see the place in the normal state,” I thought. “At least I knew that I had a vacuum cleaner. Darius, on the other hand..”
“What is this?” Nazy asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Why aren’t you using this closet?”
“Closet?”
“I just pushed this lever and ‘voila’ a closet!”
“Voila?”
“You didn’t know about this closet did you?”
“Nazy..”
“If you knew about it, you wouldn’t have left your underwear in the suitcase by the TV.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “Maybe I saved that closet just for you!” “Who turned on the Romulan cloaking device?” I thought.
“Right,” Nazy replied. Note: In the first draft of this letter, I used my imagination to describe Nazy’s thoughts. She complained and corrected my supposition. “I knew that you hadn’t seen the closet.”
Reader Interrupt
“Wait a minute,” a reader interrupts. “Are you saying that you didn’t notice an entire closet?”
“It looked like a wall.”
“Didn’t you make jokes at Darius’ expense when he didn’t know he had a vacuum cleaner?”
“That was when he lost his vacuum cleaner.”
“Isn’t missing a closet worse than..”
“I didn’t lose it..excuse me - but I am writing this letter. And I don’t have to write about you.”
End Reader Interrupt
While I was at work the next day, Nazy decided to rearrange the furniture and organize the apartment. Amazingly, even though there isn’t much stuff in the apartment, she moved it all. The end result was good...
“Except - we can’t plug in the computer and the printer at the same time.” I whined.
“Just move the three-way socket from under the bed, Dan.”
I curled myself into a ball of muscle and reached toward the somewhat shaky socket. Nazy, meanwhile, was trying to cram an American to German converter into a Swiss socket. Sparks ensued. The electricity went off. Ceramic-encased fuses the size of cinderblocks had blown out.
“Do we have any spares?” Nazy asked.
“I haven’t seen any.”
“Maybe they’re hidden in a utility closet. Have you seen one of those?”
It turned out that we had no spare fuses and no utility closet. (Nazy checked and confirmed.) Worse, it was 7:18PM and all the shops were closed. We, eh Nazy couldn’t cook. I checked the laundry room to see if I could swap a bad fuse with a good fuse. (To no avail, those fuses were out of sight.) Nazy, meanwhile, found the building’s electrical closet in the basement. She brought a fuse..
“Wrong size, my dear. Too big.” I explained.
“You said we needed a big one.”
“Right. Cinderblock size. This one is the size of a VW Beetle. And it’s so old, it looks like it was hand crafted by Thomas Edison.”
“It’s the only thing they have. One of your neighbors told me that the Coop is open until 8:00.”
“Heh heh.” I mumbled. “Nothing is open until 8:00PM.”
“You should go and see. I’ll look for an electrician.”
“Right.” I said, grabbing my coat. “The shops are closed, and if Nazy finds an electrician who can help, I will... i will not be surprised,” I thought.
It started to rain as I was walking to the closed shops. Meanwhile back on Rue des Glacis de Rive, Nazy stumbled across an electrician finishing up a project on the top floor. He had a spare fuse in his truck and fixed everything. It’s nice to have Nazy around. I never would have found an electrician. (On the other hand, I never would have blown the fuse either.)
Some people questioned the veracity of my claim in last week’s letter that the Geneva laundry used safety pins through the holes in the buttons rather than through the cloth of the shirt. A photo is attached.
