this one's for you, jim.

sIrEnS. the theme of my weekend evidently. expected on saturday with the siren festival. unexpected on sunday and at the courtesy of brooklyn fire engine 221.

all we wanted was a piece of furniture to sit on in our new apartment and somehow we ended up with fire engine 221, flashing lights, 6-8 members of the fdny, tools, crowbars and a ladder. i kid you not. it started so innocently with what meghan and i expected to be a simple trip to kmart to purchase a futon so that we and any guests might actually have a place to sit in our living room. the road to this particular futon had itself been a long one, it started on our june 1st move in date and finally ended yesterday. logistics (needing something relatively small and that could preferably be disassembled to get up the narrow and winding staircase), price (needing to not break the bank on this), function (needing this to serve as some sort of place for guests to sleep), and design (needing this to be a "sneaky" futon that said more couch than futon and did not have those dreadful telltale black futon railings) all causing the process to be stretched out to a month and a half. so we find this futon that we like, meg finds that kmart carries it, we decide yesterday afternoon to go pick it up from kmart - middle of manhattan, 2 girls, and a tiny toyota echo. after wasting what felt like the better part of our twenties in the new kmart "furniture showroom" waiting for someone, anyone, i don't care if you are part of the big k team or not, to help us, we proceed downstairs to customer service to pay for & pick up the futon. the box is big. it is raining. the car has to be pulled around and double parked. the box will not fit in the car. believe me, we tried. and tried. and tried some more. we end up opening the box on the sidewalk and shoving the futon piece by piece into the back seat. it almost fits. the window has to stay open so part of the frame can hang out and we can close the door. so we make our way back across the williamsburg bridge like that, park the car, unload the futon and all its components on our front stoop, and go to bring it upstairs to our apartment. but we can't get in. the door won't unlock. THE LOCK ON THE FRONT DOOR OF THE BUILDING IS BROKEN. we buzz our neighbors (there are only 3 apartments in the building). nothing. we buzz again. nothing. we buzz a lot more. nothing, nothing, nothing. we call the landlord/management company. they are closed on sundays and mondays, they leave no emergency contact number on their answering machine message. we have no name or number for the super, it is not posted anywhere. panic ensues. we call a locksmith, they say they'll send someone. we wait. there is no locksmith. we call again, he says the guy is on his way. we wait. still no locksmith. we call again, he tells me that his guy won't do it, it's illegal without the landlord's consent. so the locksmith is not coming? nope, maybe we should call the fire department. i'm sorry, the fire department? i don't know how to do that and i figure it surely cannot have come to this, so i try 311. the operator is kind, but of no real assistance. she can offer me nothing other than taking a formal complaint from me against my landlord. i'm in tears. i don't care about complaints. the landlord will hear my complaint when i finally get in touch with them. i need to get inside my apartment building. i tell her the locksmith's idea about the fire department. okay, maybe hysterically and desperately beg her to get the fire department for me is a more accurate description. she connects me to someone who connects me to my nearest firehouse, brooklyn engine 221, and after recounting all the details and explaining how i got their number in the first place, they agree to come help us out. and they do, come help us out, in the fire engine, with the lights going and the whole nine yards. we are officially a spectacle. there are screw drivers and crowbars and tools i can't identify being passed around a whole crew of firemen who cannot force the lock. plan a, to break the lock, gets set in motion, but then a last minute plan b emerges and mere seconds before the lock is popped, the ladder is coming off of the truck and being leaned against the front of the building. 1 fireman climbs the ladder to the top floor, opens my bedroom window, climbs through the window, pulling my curtains down with him and landing on my bed, finds his way out of our apartment and opens the front door to the building from the inside. they then proceed to tape the door with duct tape (to keep it from locking until it can be replaced - which won't be before tuesday ?@!?#!!? it seems since they are closed on mondays), pack up the tools, take down the ladder and leave us to assemble our futon. which we did. so now we have a place to sit and be pissed at our landlord.

really, all we wanted to was to finally get a piece of furniture to sit on, was that so much to ask?