Too Many People.. Not Enough Orgies...

So I woke up this morning, rolled out of bed and wandered past the utility room door clad in my flannel PJs and sporting my signature bedhead when I noticed a strange man smiling at me in my utility room.

I smiled back and went upstairs to get my cigarettes.

I think it's a sign of how many new people I meet in a week, that seeing some strange man in my house does absolutely nothing to faze me now.

Apparently it was the ATCO guy and he was changing the gas meter in the basement since it's an old model.

About 10 minutes later (and halfway through my first smoke of the morning) he asks Ross and I to come downstairs to check something out.

We follow him down, and he proceeds to open up the furnace.

The inside is completely blackened, but I'm so female.. I know nothing about plumbing and heating, I'm assuming this is how a furnace looks on the interior.

"How long has it been like this?", he asks, motioning at the black grit.

I couldn't honestly remember ever seeing it any other way, and I said so.

"I'm surprised you're all still alive"

Now I'm not accustomed to being told 15 minutes after waking and prior to finishing a cigarette that I should have been dead twice over, so I obviously ask him to explain.

As it turns out the black crud is carbon, and the house has probably been full of carbon monoxide the entire time I've lived here.

Scary stuff.

He also can't turn on the furnace until it's been cleaned, since it's a safety and health hazard, so I have to call landlord Steve to get him to recruit some furnace cleaning type people to perform the task lest I be left without heat.

See?

This is one of the perks of renting.

Anyway, between the furnace guys (one of which Ross and I mutually agreed was very nice eye candy), Steve popping in to see what's wrong with the plumbing to my dishwasher, and bringer-of-bad-tidings ATCO guy, I think I had to talk to too many people today.

Anti-social mode on.