Today is the day to leave the AC on.

Chicagoans: don't believe the lies being spread by Time Out Chicago! Funny Ha-Ha starts at 7 PM on Tuesday, not 9 PM.

The Case of the Haunted Toilet

I live in a gigantic high rise in Lakeview, in Chicago, one so big that I had to sit in on an orientation session before I actually moved into my unit. Among other things I learned (the sun deck is not open in the winter; do not put up flyers without checking first; committee meetings are held once a month and are open to all), was that the building had a rather antiquated toilet system. "The toilets make a noise," said the building operator. "It's hard to describe but when you hear it, you'll know it. Just call maintenance. It happens all the time."

I was intrigued, but after living here almost two years, I had never heard the call of the toilet. I'd hear a faint howl or whistle in the building and then it would go away.

Last night, while I was getting ready to go out, I noticed something unusual about my own toilet. I'd flush it and instead of taking 10 seconds to complete its flush, it would go for about 30 seconds, even a minute. This wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that it's an industrial flusher and thus flushed pretty loudly (but no, this wasn't the special toilet sound of the building. It was an unrelated sound.)

I came home and used the bathroom--and this time, the toilet didn't stop flushing. I jiggled the handle, the universal way of fixing a toilet. But no dice. I called the front desk and told them about my problem. "We'll send somebody up," the security guard said. "No, it's OK," I said. "I can wait until tomorrow." My apartment was a mess and I had a frozen lasagna in the microwave.

However the front desk knows better than I did, so within five minutes Front Desk Guy Jr. (a younger, thinner version of the main guy on duty) appeared with Sergio, a maintenance man with a pleasant countenance not unlike former White Sox player Jose Valentin. Sergio went to work on the toilet with, for some reason, a pair of scisssors while I made small talk with Front Desk Guy Jr. FDG Jr. and Sergio left while Serge got some extra tools. "If I end up dead, it was Sergio," I wrote in an email. It was 11 PM at night and there was a strange man in my apartment. And I was still hungry.

After five minutes and a glass of ice water, though, Sergio fixed the problem. I was eternally grateful and felt bad for even thinking that the man was capable of murdering me. I obviously didn't even deserve to be murdered by him.

But damned if Sergio wasn't actually a devious being in the end! About an hour later, as I was finishing up a rerun of "Project Runway," I heard it. It was a howl, both high and low at the same time. I actually thought that for a while it was coming from my neighbor, a guy who really really likes playing loud music, especially Steve Winwood and Rob Thomas tunes. "What a jerk," I thought to myself. "Is he vacuuming?" The noise got louder and louder. And I realized--this was it. This was the angry wounded call of the toilet. It was happening to me!

I did the second thing you do to fix a broken toilet: I flushed it. But Sergio had failed me! It didn't stop flushing, even through the night. This was fine as I have two doors between my bathroom and my bedroom and the air conditioning was on anyway, so all together it was sort of a pleasant white noise.

As I type, there is a new maintenance man in my bathroom. He tells me that the toilet needs a new system and very gravely tells me that it's going to cost $86 and that it might take an hour to do if I don't mind (do I mind if they work while I'm gone at the office? No.) I don't know this guy's name--his name patch is covered up by some papers in his pocket. But I sort of like the anonymity--while Sergio was charming and handsome, he was obviously small-time. This guy is sort of the Zorro of toilet fixing. I hope when I come back the toilet is in working order, possibly with a rose laid across it.

Next week hopefully I'll have an interview for you again, or else I'll be reduced to telling you the Legend of the Weird Black Stuff That Comes Out of the Vent in My Bathroom on Windy Days.