Into the Wild.

There's something extra-special about living in the Bronx, and mostly it's that I never really know if I am facing threats to life and limb.

Don't get me wrong: my neighborhood feels very safe. I've never been followed or threatened,* and although the school occasionally sends out reports of people getting jumped by preteens, those reports seem to be limited to the sort of situations where a person is walking down the street with their headphones on and their iPad and iPhone somehow both visible simultaneously.

No, the beautiful thing about this borough is that if I'm going to die, it's going to be because of some bizarre occurrence that belongs in a cartoon, or someplace in the jungle. I wouldn't be surprised if, one day, a piano just fell on me. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if I got run over by the Ice Cream Truck.  But the extreme nature of my environment has become significantly more apparent in recent weeks.

And now, some Cases In Point.

It's Electrifying!
I returned home from my 'surprise' trip West for Spring Break (which, I must say, was quite wonderful in almost every way) late last Sunday night to find the ceiling in my kitchen swollen, distended, and leaking from a tiny hole near the light fixture.
Being the alarmist that I am, I assumed that there must be a pool of water collecting above my head, and that if I were to turn on the overhead light there would be explosions and, potentially, a fire that would destroy me in my sleep. I called my management company and proceeded to not turn on the lights, even for cooking, as I waited for the repairmen to arrive several days later.

When they came, they announced that what they could do for me was "scrape the ceiling" and replaster it. This seemed marginally better than having a stalactite of drywall tape and paint,° so I allowed them to do it, and then contacted my actual Superintendent before leaving town for the weekend (again, I will announce obliquely that my trip to Philadelphia was splendid, and provide no further details).

This morning, I went down to pick up some packages from the ravioli shop, and was told that there had been a problem in the "steam vents" on the top two floors of the building, and that they think they have them fixed.  How there came to be a problem in the steam vents, I do not know. What a steam vent is, I do not know. It seems as though steam should not be vented indoors, unless this is the 19th century and I live in a building with a coal-powered boiler in the basement.

In any case, the ceiling is dry, and should neither cave in nor cause an electrical fire in the near future.


Snakes. Not on a Plane.
This is national news by now, but it bears repeating.
I live near a large zoo. I have yet to visit said zoo, but am told that the animals are quite impressive.

One of them certainly is: the tale of the deadly Cobra who managed to disappear from the grounds is gaining a cultural cache. He even has his own twitter feed: http://twitter.com/#!/BronxZoosCobra .

What this means is that, at this very moment, it is actually possible that some innocent passer-by could get bitten (and potentially eaten!) by a venomous slithery creature, while just walking along the streets of the Bronx. Is it likely? No, of course not. He'd probably get run over by one of the renegade gypsy cab drivers before he ever made it to snacking on a person, but I am still living in an area where deadly animals go missing and very well could be roaming the streets.



The moral of this story, I suppose, is that...well, one can never be too careful. Or something. Maybe there is no moral. Maybe I'll just start wearing protective headgear and packing an emergency kit everywhere I go. Maybe I can play on that ridiculous "urban jungle" cliche in new and fascinating ways.



notes:
* Although there was that one time I was followed for several blocks by three men looking to get my phone number for their friend who could not speak English, and there is that one fellow who, if you make eye contact with him shouts, "Happy Turkey, GOBBLE GOBBLE!"
° Can you imagine how cool it would be to have stalactites on your ceiling for real? You know, if they could be certain to never fall on you.