Duties of a Super

(Trey Speegle)

I went and worked-out this morning. Don't worry, I didn't do this on my own.  My wife asked me if I wanted to go work out while I was still falling asleep last night, then again all night as I was dreaming, then again as I awoke. She's like an aerobic-exercise-succubi.  I have been having very mundane dreams lately, they are easy to interrupt, they practically invite it.  

In any event.... working out is not at all what I remember it to be.  

Self-motivation is an interesting thing.  I once heard somebody say, "You'll never work out if you don't want to. No amount of tricks to get you to the gym will make you workout. You have to enjoy doing it."  I believe this to be true.  I also believe that I have not yet re-achieved that stage by returning to the gym after a prolonged absence.  The stage where I'm enjoying it is still far off.  

I did some light cardio this morning.  Or, what would normally be "light" for me when I was exercising on a regular basis.  I write this now from the hospital bed where I am resting gently.  

No, but hospitalization is never far off.   I overdo all things.

I have begun to examine further the things that I will miss about New York, if we leave.  That is yet another entertaining way to spend my mornings when I'm not in a battle to the death with a stairclimber machine. 

The superintendent of our building is not one of the things that I will necessarily miss about New York but he does offer us a unique experience.  Every morning he walks from building to building (he is the "super" of several buildings here on this street) and he screams instructions to his other friends that help him with the various duties of a super.  He has lived in America for about 45 years now but the impulse to learn English has never quite taken him. Which is well enough as we are still able to communicate as needed and we don't spend much nonessential time doing so.  So he walks from building to building screaming his various instructions, clarifications, questions, and assorted comments concerning organizational behavior and local activities to anybody and everybody within listening distance in a voluble stream of clear, distinct, and unbroken Spanish.   

There are approximately 200 people spread throughout about 120 apartments within his shouting range. This is a modest assessment of his abilities. Research might reveal an even greater affect. My wife and I guessed that each of these apartments rents for somewhere between $1500 and $2500, so we took $2000 to be an average rental price.  That means that he is disturbing the living environment of almost a quarter of a million dollars worth of monthly renters each and every morning, except when it's cold. For some inexplicable reason he is quiet in the wintertime. Yet the work still gets done.  It is a local mystery.

I thought that maybe we should record him a few mornings and make an audio loop of it that we could use in our clock radio to wake up wherever else we might go.  His informative Spanish is something that we might not be graced with in another place that we choose to live. We might miss it.  Who knows, we might not be able to wake up without it, such has our morning dependency upon it grown.  

Better yet: we might be able to market it and sell it... "Short, Puerto-Rican, man screaming about trash pickup times in authentic New York neighborhood...."  Yes, I said it, he is short.  We assume that he is stricken with this short-person's affliction that causes people to over-project.  He does so with a flavorful bravado each and every morning, predictably as they say, like miniature clockwork.  

Ok, I've got other stuff to do this morning. Strike that last paragraph from the records. Just like they do in Congress.....

Oh, remind me to be a nicer person.

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