Miguel

So while I'm in the posting mood, let me write about Miguel. Miguel is the handyman who works in our apartment complex. We never know when he is going to show up, nor how long he will be around. Miguel is a mumbler. And he has an unusual accent. And he talks as if we are native Portuguese speakers. This makes it VERY difficult to communicate with him. Because we are new in our apartment, the past six weeks have made us very dependent on Miguel for many things: installing the pipe in the master bath that the previous tenants had sawed off, repairing the broken shower head, installing the Brazilian clothes line, repairing the leaky toilet three times, checking the gas line to the stove, and so on. Miguel is very elusive, so any time we have seen him around, we run down to talk with him. Which usually goes something like this:

Me: "Hi, good afternoon. Anything you good?"

Miguel: "allsa. *7lakds bkalksdf"

Me, holding item in need of installing: "Today? You can fix it come to apartment?"

Miguel: "oiw0kb, toisoiugoiu ks211kg akdkls. utowoypppp sdi20lbzzz."

Me, confused: "Yes? No? Today?"

Miguel: "lsdkj9blksj, 2aoisuosowxxxksl booow."

Me: "Pardon me, what?"

Miguel: "I will do something, sometime."

Me: "Uh, ok. Uh, ok, thanks."

Then I go back home, and tell Matt that Miguel is going to do something, sometime. And sometimes he shows up! But most often he doesn't, and I have to have another conversation like above.

But this week we had a very big success! Miguel showed up after Matt spoke to him (actually within a few hours!) and our toilet is no longer leaking, and we have a proper set up for drying our clothes. No longer do I need to lean over the laundry sink to scrub socks!! And, some kind of communication happened between us and Miguel. I saw him today, trying to clean and fill the pool while it was pouring down rain, and I sent him warm thoughts.