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Our apartment is rather sparsely populated by decorations or furniture. If it weren't for one roommate's talents as an artist (and prodigious output), there would be relatively little of anything in our common areas to denote the presence of tenants. This is true at the best of times, but doubly so lately. A pair of incidents have seen to it that things are so worsened. Neither was predicted, but each has come to pass at the worst possible time in that the other also did.

Our coffee table is really the only table on which we eat (as the proper dining table is in fact a plastic one and is mainly used for the artist's endeavors). It was here on something like a permanent loan from our dear friends elsewhere in the building. Like the sword of Damocles, its possible loss hung over us as a grim specter. Well, our worst fears have been realized, and it is gone. A void now lies between the couch and television. Making matters worse, that void lays bare the deplorable condition of the carpet where the coffee table had been.

The other loss helps out there in a way. The other night I was in my room at the computer when I sensed a flickering light. I could not detect its origin and went on with my business. It got worse, and I could see that it was my desk lamp. Each time it went out I hit it, and it then came back. After a while of that, the frequency increased as did the effort necessary to bring it back. Finally it went out and wouldn't come back. In response I went and got the floor lamp I had put in the living room. Said living room was then plunged into darkness, and Peter had successfully been robbed to pay Paul.

As you can gather, the living room has become a somewhat less hospitable place, although it offers more room than ever to sprawl out. We being three bachelors, it was always going to be spare in spite of my great latent ambitions, but it really is so now. Perhaps I will finally be moved to make some aggressive acquisitions to fill the hole left in the living room's configuration. Thrift stores will be scoured. I sure will try to avoid dipping into the piles of junk out on the sidewalk, though. There remain some lines I won't cross.