At last, truth in advertising!

I found this ‘corrected’ advertisement at the 23rd Street – Ely Avenue stop of the E train recently. It would appear that someone is finding this promise of a 6 minute, 42 second commute to Manhattan a bit difficult to swallow— or (more likely) he fell for this ruse and now has a serious case of buyer’s remorse. Either way, it makes me damned happy I ride the G train.

I for one recommend that these posters be relocated to the 7 line. The advertising copy should be revised to read as follows:

If you lived here you would still be waiting for the 7 train. Sucker!

Tee, Hee…

Miss Heather

It’s Official: Mr. Poopyhead Panties for Sale!!!

Come one, come all! Miss Heather’s Dog Shit Emporium is open for business!

Miss Heather

Flowers in the Attic

Hands down, last Thursday was one of the WORST days I have ever had in the over-priced— yet rent-stabilized— shitheap that is my apartment. Period. Hallway puke* is mere fluff compared to the unbridled idiocy I endured at the hands of the ‘management’ of this building.

You will notice that I put quotes around the word management. This is because this building is managed in only the most rudimentary academic sense. Much like Iraq or Afghanistan have functioning governments, there is a management company for this building. On paper, anyway. The day-to-day reality tells a very different story.

Words cannot adequately attest to my experience. The following photo does.

This is my bathtub. While I will not profess to being the most fastidious person in the world (the years of caked on grime in this apartment render it impossible anyway), this is not the usual state of my bathroom. Nope, what you’re seeing in the above photo is what happens when the landlord decides is ordered to repair something: a thorough sacking of my bathroom by scabs.

Every time I think this building is “under control” (and go about looking for work, making art, writing about dog shit or having a life) some horrendous latent defect (or disgusting bodily discharge) rears its ugly head. I am the resident Confessor/Mensch for the tenants of this building. Do not ask me why this is so; it just is. This is why I know damned near everything that is wrong with this building. My neighbors call me, email me, or knock on my door and tell me all about it. Often.

So it wasn’t really that big of a surprise when a man knocked on my door Thursday morning and told me that he needed to tear out part of my bathroom ceiling so he could repair the plumbing for the apartment upstairs. After years of having to use a bucket to bail out the water from their bathtub (because it will not drain), my upstairs neighbors finally had enough and brought this to the attention on their Section-8 housing inspector. Good for them.

I only have my own presumptuousness to blame for expecting to get any notice whatsoever from the landlord as to when these repairs were to take place. I should have known better. Stupid me.

After staying up late the night before I was awakened by a knock at my door. I ignored it. Five minutes later, more knocking. I answered the door to find two scruffy men looking at me.

The older one spoke: We are here to tear out your bathroom ceiling so we can repair the plumbing.
Me: ?
Repairman: Didn’t the Stupor tell you?
Me: No. He doesn’t tell any of us jack shit.
Repairman: I need to work in your bathroom.
Me: That may very well be, but you are going to wait 15 minutes so I can get dressed.
Repairman: ?

I close the door and lock it. Fifteen minutes (and one very angry phone call to my husband) later, he comes back.

Me: How long is this going to take?
Repairman: One hour.
Me: Am I going to be able to use the toilet?
Repairman: Do you need to go to the bathroom?
Me: Not right now, but this isn’t exactly something that is within my control, now is it?

The repairman’s assistant thought this pithy response was funny as hell.

I spent the next FOUR HOURS yelling at my husband/friends/neighbors via telephone over the din of this demented duo pommelling the shit out of my bathroom, shouting at each other and repeatedly slamming my apartment door. When they finally completed their task, they had also effectively rendered an entire afternoon spent cleaning the kitchen and bathroom useless. Even after ‘cleaning up’ my bathroom, it looked like it belonged at a gas station. The only notable difference being that gas station lavatories don’t usually have a gaping HOLE in the ceiling.

Nice, eh? I for one like the evidence of a previously aborted attempt to penetrate my ceiling. I was told by the repairman that the Stupor would be by on Saturday (today) to fix the hole. Like hell he will. Even if the Stupe bothers to show up, I sure as fuck am not going to let him fix it. He’s a fucking moron.

After working a 10 hour day my husband came home and started sealing up the hole. Before doing so he peered inside the dropped ceiling with a flashlight. He came into the living room and told me to come in and have a look. I really wish he hadn’t done this.

This is the ass-end of our neighbor’s bathtub.

Suspecting that my husband might be onto something interesting, I grabbed my digital camera and took blind photos of the rest of the space. I then ran into the living room and uploaded them.

Um, this doesn’t look right…

EWW! There are movies with stage sets that look like this.
They are called snuff films.

Come play with us, Heather.

Forever.

And EVER.

AND EVER!!!

After telling my husband that I was totally convinced someone had stashed dead fetuses in there, I quickly retreated to the living room. I did not come back until he had sealed off this Whatever Happened to Baby Jane-esque chamber of horrors.

Fuck 311, I’m calling an exorcist!

Miss Heather

UPDATE

2/25/07: True to form, the Super did not show up Saturday to repair the ceiling. He was probably too busy aspirating on his own seminal fluid, jacking-off or standing around looking stupid. Perhaps all three (at once, mind you).

2/27/07, 6:00 p.m.: I hear a knock at my door. It is the Stupor accompanied by yet another ‘scab’. He says he wants to repair my ceiling. I tell him that my husband (a former finish carpenter) had already done so and shut the door. Not satisified with this answer (what would I know, I AM just a woman, after all), the Stupor asks my husband about one hour later. And got the exact same answer. The Stupe seems to operate under the (antiquated and sexist notion) that my husband is behind much of the HPD complaints, DOB inspections, etc., here. He isn’t: I am.

*This finally got mopped up yesterday. I know this came to pass because, I shit you not, the puke had managed to eat through the fucking paint!

Why would someone paint a tile floor you ask? Very simple: it’s a nice way for the Stupor to kick some business to his retarded cronies and pocket a little dough. Oh— and didn’t I mention already that the Stupor is a fucking moron?

Miss Heather: an inspiration to today’s youth?

I am frequently asked why I created this blog. This is a very reasonable question. The Dog Shit Queen of Greenpoint makes periodic visits to Normalcy; enough so to understand why some might find my painstaking documentation of dog shit, bum shit (my personal favorite), chicken bones and the many other endearing qualities of my ‘nabe to be a bit odd, if not outrightly disturbing.

I have even asked myself this very question on occasion and have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer. To be certain I enjoy the ‘prestige’ my (admittedly self-created) title confers unto my person, but I suspect I am searching for something more. Fame? Fortune? A run for City Council Mayor? Only time will tell.

Recently I made a discovery that frankly made feel a little touched (in the heart, mind you, not in the head— where I am constantly ‘touched’). I was poking around my blog when I discovered a new incoming link. Being an inquisitive person, I checked it out and was astonished with what I found. A teenage girl in Flushing, Queens seems to have been inspired by my rogue activities and has started a blog of her own:

let me give you a little insight into my world and my what goes on in it. i live in the old italian infested portion of queens known as flushing, more commonly known for the ridiculous amount of asians, but i digress. we don’t do much here, not by choice but because there’s nothing to do. i have a close group of friends. we are, inevitably at times, the obnoxiously loud teenagers you wanna take a machete to. we then bash other, more obnoxiously loud people. it’s quite fun. i have a family, they’re quite loud and disfunctional. there are days i want to kill them all, but thats how family is: can’t live with em, can’t live without em. life is complex, i realize that and i think about it often: all the aspects of it. and i guess that’s what thats what i’ll really write about. i don’t think this will be as funny as Miss Heather’s www.newyorkshitty.com, my inspiration for this blog. but i promise i’ll try to make it something worth reading. that’s all for now.

Whoa! I have no doubt that when these words were written hell froze over. Or pigs started flying. Or George W. Bush got a brain. (Take your pick.) I may or may not be the best role model to be had for today’s youth, but it makes me VERY happy to see that I have motivated someone to start writing. And when I read her blog this morning I realized that this is a very good thing: she’s fucking hilarious. I particularly enjoyed her “About” statement (which appears to have since been excised):

life as a teenager in new york city…cuz we’re not all assholes

I would like to take this moment to go on the record and state that I never found teenagers to be assholes. Not in any more significant numbers than the general population anyway. In fact, I sort of envy them; they can get away with a lot more shit than so-called ‘adults’. This is undoubtedly a sign of my own immaturity and I can live with that.

Follows is a little story a good buddy of mine sent me recently featuring some more (admittedly deliquent and less witty) examples of today’s youth. Enjoy!

I don’t even know why i’m bothering to write this because I can’t do it justice, and it’s going to end up being one of those ‘you had to be there’ things.

But it’s still a good story.

I’m on the way home from work (at a decent hour mind you)–just chillin’ and reading my magazine. The train is crowded and I’m lucky I got a seat. Even so I’m sitting between other people with thick coats to bundle up against the cold, so I’m kind of squished and holding my magazine at a slightly awkward angle.
Suddenly a fight breaks out a few feet away. I can’t see it because of the crowd, but I can hear it because of the piercing trash talk–it’s coming from a group of innebriated 13 year old hispanic girls.

Straight out of a TV show: bitch I’m gon’ kick your ass, you comin out your mouth like that to me! I ain’t gon be disrespected.

All the guys look on with interest, the women try to ignore it. Suddenly there’s a bunch of jostling and the trash talk and it is getting louder–because it’s approaching. Someone gets up next to me and stomps off down the car with a “I can’t take this shit” air. So what happens? Two of the girls’ friends drag their hyped up little asses down, slam them down next to me and then sit on them. They are screaming.

“Shut the fuck up you are not going to fight her!”

“The fuck I ain’t!”

“I’m telling you you ain’t cuz you fight her I’m ‘onna wind up in jail tomorrow morning, fuck that shit. SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

(Piercing 13-year-old screeching ensues.)

This goes on for a bit. With the fighting girls pretending to be calm and saying “hold this bag. It has my money and my cell phone. Hold it for me.

I am calm but I’M GONNA KICK HER MOTHER FUCKING ASS! I’M GONNA TAP DANCE ON HER FACE LIKE SHE WAS FUCKING ROACHES!”

I started giggling at this point, so they start hamming it up for more attention. I keep reading my magazine and start emitting calm vibes.

Next thing you know one of the fighting girls is leaning her head on my shoulder. One of the caretaker friends says “bitch quit leaning on that lady’s shoulder she dont’ like you. Oh wait, yes she do, cuz you look white.” They start giggling but they all calmed down.

It was a New York moment.

Ah, the lost pleasures of youth…

Miss Heather

Anyone looking for an apartment share?

I found this at the Jay Street/Borough Hall stop of the A train yesterday. While I applaud this person’s ingenuity (advertising ON a subway map will get your message out to A LOT of people), I do harbor concerns about the caliber of person who might take this guy up on his offer. This ad hoc advertisement is located one block away from the Criminal Court Building after all…

Miss Heather

Greenpoint Pride

I came across this shirt at a new store in the ‘hood: Alter. They also sell one with the Greenpoint Terminal Market screenprinted on it. WAY COOL.

Can you think of a better way to show your Greenpoint pride? I think not. I also loved this jacket. Very cute. Check them out!

Alter
109 Franklin Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222

718-784-8818

www.alterbrooklyn.com

Miss Heather