Everything keeps breaking down

I was rolling with my buddy Cruise the other day when I felt this sharp Pain in my left foot and looked down, horrified to see my middle toe bent 90 degrees…in the wrong direction.

Holy shit! I said.

I’d put that pain at a solid 5, if 1 was nuthin and 10 was the worse pain in my life.

Without even thinking, I reached over and yanked it back into place, which shot my pain level up to a 10 but only for a second before it dropped down to a managable 2.

So, this whole week, I’ve been hobbling around with my toes taped up.

But it’s not just me, the kid’s been dealing with his own foot pain lately.

We went to an indoor gym the other day – something I’ll tell you about later – and he spent hours running around the place.

Figure he musta gotten a blister from all the activities so we were both hobbling around for a bit.

On a larger level, things in the building have been a mess too.

Things keeps breaking around the building so I gotta find people to come in and fix them.

To make matters worse, the hot water for the whole building completely stopped for some reason.

Only after the plumbers arrived did we figure out that it was the boiler’s mixing valve – which mixes the 212-degree water with city tap water to get hot water for our building – that called it quits.

After a full day of waiting around and some five hours of work, we finally had hot water again.

The kid helped out too, since I had to be in the basement, he was the one that measured the temps for us in the bathroom.

Him: It’s 130 degrees, dad!
Me: That’s too much, lemme know when it’s less.
Him: (two minutes later) It’s 129 degrees now!
Me: (laughing) OK, that’s only marginally helpful, kid. I meant like 120 or less?
Him: Oh, you shoulda said that.
Me: Fair. That’s on me.

On a macro level, the manhole cover a few blocks south of my pad blew off completely because of some fire under Amsterdam Avenue.

Smoke and firemen were everywhere.

Now, this happened just south of the Jewish Community Center (JCC) and everyone just heard this loud but muffled BOOM.

I’m pretty certain I’m not the only person that thought the worst.

But it wasn’t terrorism, just the run-of-the-mill calamities that NYC always has.

Which, in this day and age, is probably the best we can hope for.

Location: earlier, at a Halloween party that we’ve been going to for the past four years now
Mood: not salty
Music: hold onto me, cause I’m a little unsteady (Spotify)