Shovel

Another time that Walrus and I were off in another state, Owl came home to find a shovel leaning up against the fridge.

Yep.  Just a shovel.  And a dirty shovel, too; not even one she recognized.

Naturally, she texted me to ask about it, even though she'd been there more recently than I.

This time, as it happens, I had a guess as to what had happened, so my response was to ask whether or not we had a new screen door on the balcony.  She checked; there was.

A few weeks previous, our landlord had asked us to keep the balcony door shut in case of squirrels.  Normally, I'd simply agree; who wants wildlife in your kitchen?  But since the balcony had no screen door, this made getting a breeze in the disgusting summer weather we were having rather difficult.  He assured me he would get a new screen door in.  Each week or so thereafter, I'd given him a call asking him about the door.  Finally, I left a message saying that I wouldn't be able to get in touch because I would be out of cell range, and that he should call Owl about the door.  Apparently he took the first part of this to heart, but ignored the second.

Which doesn't exactly explain why there was a dirty shovel in the kitchen.  Clearly it was left by elves.

Flash back here to the bloody pillow story (see below).  As it happens, despite the fact that the landlord claimed he had not come in our house, upon returning home, Walrus and I learned that, the very same day we left, the landlord had slipped in the snow and injured his head such that his ear was bleeding and he seemed disoriented.  The landlord swore that he had gone straight to his floor, gone to bed for a bit, gone to the bathroom to wash up, and then been fine.  Checking this against the evidence- door had been open when my friend came to take care of the cat the first time, closest bedroom to the door had been lain in with a head injury, bathroom light was on- it seems likely that, whether or not he remembers it, the landlord was in fact our mysterious elf.

So, no surprise, the landlord, and/or his buddy, had come in the apartment without telling anyone, installed the new door, picked up a shovel from somewhere to clear some of the junk from the balcony to make doing so easier, and left the shovel wherever was convenient.  Oh, and left an empty six-pack Budweiser container near the balcony, too.

Naturally, he swears that his buddy did the installation with Owl present, handed her the shovel he found on the balcony, and never would ever drink on the job.  Riiiiight.

Pizza Elves

So, between then and now, I've gotten an entire graduate degree. I find myself once again with a moderate amount of brain to spare. Congratulations, dedicated readers! You have discovered posts no one thought would happen!

There has also been a swapping of housemates. Owl left for a time, and a classmate of mine, to be known as Jill, took the room. Some things to know about Jill: she is very self-sufficient, she is very self-contained, and she is very, well, normal. It was less like having a housemate and more like having a very quiet neighbor. Well, so says one who is used to living with good friends.

Another thing about Jill is that she has a gluten sensitivity. Not Celiac, apparently, so I don't really understand the details. But it was serious enough that she used and washed her own plates and utensils.

Which made it very confusing when, on returning from going out to dinner with Walrus, we discovered a box half-filled with pizza, very normal, gluten-filled pizza, sitting on our kitchen counter. At first, I assumed this was Walrus', and he assumed it was mine, even though neither of us likes the particular kind of pizza in the box, because it certainly couldn't be Jill's.

Upon discovering that it wasn't either of ours, we declared it to be courtesy of the pizza elves, perhaps as part payment for their cousins the bloody elves.

Later, of course, it was determined that Jill "sometimes just can't resist". I guess the sensitivity isn't so serious after all.