It was Sunday in the Nigerian village where Gabe and I were staying. Actually, we were staying in a nice hotel that looked completely out of place in the Nigerian village where we were staying.What follows is the true story of how I roof-tested the third-story bathroom window of said nice hotel.
Upon settling into our hotel room, Gabe and I noticed that our bathroom window was open. As is the case with most windows that slide open and closed, our bathroom window had a track to guide the left and right panes of the window, and by so guiding, prevent the window panes from toppling three stories to an untimely end at the hands of the concrete below—if concrete indeed has hands. The right pane was resting securely in its track. The left pane was resting precariously on the concrete ledge, hanging on for dear life by leaning against the right window pane. That is, the left window pane was operating on borrowed time.
For the better part of a week, wisdom, or at least want of a cooler room at night, prevailed in our hotel room. Gabe and I had both astutely realized that it was best to leave the left window pane alone. Besides, the air conditioner in our room had failed during our first night there, and so the open window provided a minimal amount of cool, outside air, albeit at an increased risk of granting malaria-carrying mosquitoes access to our room. The adjoining room, which was a lounge area, also had an air conditioner that took some of the edge off the heat at night, when we left the door open.
So on Sunday night, it came to our attention that we had not, as we feared, run our air conditioner into the ground. As it turned out, there was simply a problem with the circuit that governed our air conditioner, and the hotel management remedied the situation within five minutes of our bringing it to their attention. Upon cranking up the air conditioner as high as it would go, I decided to close, or at least barricade, the left side of our bathroom window. I cautiously slid the left window pane along the concrete ledge so that it still rested somewhat on the right window pane, but now the passageway for insects to invade our room had narrowed significantly. So far, so good.
Then, deeming it impossible to have too much of a good thing, I took the additional precaution against mosquitoes of spraying our bathroom floor with insecticide. “Now that I have reduced the opportunity for insects to come into the room,” I thought, “why not rid our room of the ones that have already made it in?” After thoroughly dousing the bathroom floor and walls with bug spray, I did the only thing any self-respecting, trigger-happy man with a can of unspent insecticide would do: I eyed the bathroom window.
It is difficult to comprehend the lies men believe in situations such as these. In a momentary, but significant, lapse of judgment, I suspended all belief in such things as gravity and the fact that our room was on the third story. Surely the effects of aerosol-propelled fluid against a window pane hanging on for dear life would be negligible.I steadied my hand and took aim.
There was an eerie silence immediately following the moment when the window disappeared from the ledge where it had so peacefully rested during our first week in the cushiest hotel in remote Nigerian villages anywhere. I released the trigger on the insecticide and thought to myself, “Wow, it’s really taking its time getting down there.” After a few seconds, the inevitable crash confirmed what I already knew.
1 comment:
Engrossingly written.
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