BitterSweetLife

Chaos Theory. Murphy's Law. I should have seen this coming. When you least expect it, government officials will enter your loft to inspect your appliances and criticize your shoe storage strategy.

Last week, Lindsay and I received a note from our apartment office, warning us that on Thursday and Friday of this week, selected units would be inspected by the Grand Poobah of Functioning Appliances to make sure management was not conning us into paying rent while secretly installing dead dishwashers and lifeless hot water heaters in our lofts.

When you see "selected" in an official notice, it is safe to assume that you are safe. "Selected" means "a statistical sample so small that you are in no danger." "Selected" means "other apartments will be ransacked, but not yours." Everyone knows this.

At around noon today, our building manager and a couple inspectors knocked on our door. Of course, this was completely unexpected. I had no choice but to open up and usher the trio into the squalor of our daily life.

Well, not squalor exactly. There was too much stuff everywhere for squalor. Total chaos and rampant, magnificent carnage would be more accurate. Welcome to our apartment, the chosen vacation destination for dozens of plastic toys and balls of every color and size! At one point, the lead inspector stepped on Aidan's sippie cup. "Oh, kiddie toy," he assessed. "Good call dude, since you're surrounded by them on every side," I prevented myself from saying, with effort.

Shortly thereafter, the Appliance Poobah deemed our apartment operational--but not before frowning at the ingenious way I had attached a shoe rack to the inside-door of our appliance closet. "Not enough air flow," said our apartment manager. "You'll have to take that down."

I smiled. "Oohh, OK, I see." Which meant, "I will take down my shoe rack the instant that you install an additional closet in this storage-challenged loft." We understood each other well, and all parted on peaceful terms. But most important, no one noticed the REAL LIVE (at least until Aidan forgot to water it a couple days ago) Christmas tree by the window.

I take some credit for that, since I stood between the tree and the door for the duration of the inspection, and made conversation with our manager to distract her. Shortly after the inspection ended, Aidan and I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and feverishly cleaned the entire place as a kind of penance. (Sadly, a congenital defect prevents Lindsay from vacuuming, as she is missing the finger joints that allow normal people to perform this task.)

All's well that ends well.