Stu's visit to Egypt.
10/05/01
Fixing up an apartment in Cairo
can be a challenge. Even Martha Stewart
would give up. Home improvement doesn't
exist here so there is no market for Lowe's. The best you can hope for is to
hang a few pictures and throw a
pillow on the couch. So I had a couple of large
photos framed along with my grandmother's painting I had brought to make my
apartment feel cozy.
I got home with them after
dinner and wanted to hang them right away. I
had scrounged some nails from a shelf in the science
classroom and figured I'd use the heel of my heavy, hiking boot to
hammer them into the wall.
There is no Home Depot and a hammer is likely to cost
more here than in the
states. Besides, I would use it once and then have
to lug it around for the
rest of my life. My boot would have to do.
My boot didn't do.
First of all the wall is concrete. Second of all
the boot heel is rubber. It's unthinkable
that I actually teach a course in
physics. After many minutes of pounding I could
not convince the nail to
penetrate the wall. Obviously, I needed to find a
more suitable object. The
search was on.
I tried the kitchen
first. Frying pan? Metal, has a handle,
broad head, this could work. Then again, it could
drive the nail through the bottom
of the pan, pull it out of the wall with a small chunk
of concrete and leave
a bigger hole than necessary in both the wall and the
pan. It was a chance I
was willing to take. Let's just say we can't make omelets any more. But I
think we can still make grilled cheese.
On to the living room. A
dictionary? Heavy, thick, hard-covered perfect.
Perfect if I wanted to look up "wall",
"force", "conservation of energy",
or
"moron", but not so good at driving steel
through mortar. A coffee table
leg? I stared at the wide, wooden leg like Wile E.
Coyote picturing the Road
Runner as a leg of lamb. I turned the table over
and examined the underside,
but there was no way to detach the tool.
A search of the whole apartment
turned up nothing. Spatula, cutting
board, drink coaster, television remote control, and
thermos all got a turn
and none proved worthy of the task. Oddly, it was
too late at night to knock
on our neighbor's door to ask for a hammer, but
not too late to bang on the
wall incessantly with random objects. I was at the
end of my rope. I wanted
desperately to hang these pictures. Then I spotted
a heavy, metallic
cylinder on the back of a shelf and completely lost my
mind.
I can't fully explain
why I did what I did next. Every fiber in my body
knew it was wrong, but none of them spoke up. It
was as if my brain was a
bully on a playground and no one had the guts to stop
him. I remember
looking down at myself from above through some kind of
out of body
experience. I saw myself reach for the extra-large
size can of scorpion killing strength Raid and walk to the nail and I
couldn't do a damn thing to
stop it.
The can was big, heavy and easy
to swing, but surprisingly fragile when
used as a hammer. I punctured the can on the third
strike. The
high-pressure contents bursting through a tiny hole
produced a fountain of
spray that made it look like I was power washing the
wall. I quickly scanned
the room and spotted the balcony doors. I rushed
to them holding the can low
to the floor so as not to coat everything in the room
with volatile, toxic
chemicals. I flung them open, tossed the can
grenade style onto the porch,
and slammed the doors shut all in one swift
motion. I listened as the can
skidded across the tile spitting and hissing like a
wounded animal.
My roommate poked his head
around the corner and asked if I had struck a
water pipe in the wall. I looked at him as I
leaned against the balcony
doors and casually remarked that I had damaged a can of
bug spray like it's
the sort of thing that happens whenever you hang
pictures on the wall. Then
I took all my clothes off and put them in the
washer.
I had some explaining to do to
my neighbors about the ruckus they heard
late at night, but they gladly lent me a hammer the next
day. The noxious
fumes still linger. Everything I eat tastes
funny. And I get light-headed
just walking into my bedroom. On the other hand,
the pictures look great on
the wall and I haven't seen a living thing
crawling on my balcony in over a
week.