"Don't pull," Marissa hissed. "You're making it worse." "How can I not pull? We're literally glued together."
"That's impossible. It's lubricant, not glue." Oh, my sweet wife. If only you knew how wrong you were.
The next few minutes were like listening to the world's most satisfying comedy show. They tried everything. Water from the kitchen sink, soap from the bathroom, even what sounded like cooking oil. Nothing worked.
The industrial-grade Superloo was doing exactly what it was designed to do: create a permanent bond between two surfaces. In this case, those surfaces happened to be my cheating wife and her boyfriend. "We need to call someone," Leo said, his voice tight with pain and embarrassment. "Call who?"
"What are we supposed to say?" "I don't know. A doctor. An ambulance."
"Oh God, this is humiliating." You ain't seen nothing yet, honey. After about 40 minutes of increasingly desperate attempts to separate themselves, they finally admitted defeat. I heard Leo make the call.
"Yes, we need an ambulance. It's... it's hard to explain. We're kind of stuck together." I decided that was my cue to leave.
After all, I didn't want to be standing in the hallway when the paramedics showed up. That would be awkward for everyone involved. But as I headed back toward the stairs, I couldn't help but smile. Phase One was complete.
Sometimes the universe has a sense of humor that's so twisted, so perfectly calibrated to deliver maximum irony that you almost have to believe in some kind of cosmic justice. Because there I was, padding back down to my apartment in my bathrobe, listening to the muffled sounds of panic from 4C. Feeling like I'd just witnessed the greatest act of divine intervention since Moses parted the Red Sea, I slipped back into my apartment and positioned myself in the hallway right by our front door, where I had the perfect vantage point to watch the show. Our peephole gave me a fisheye view of the elevator and most of the hallway, which meant I was about to get front-row seats to what was undoubtedly going to be the most entertaining medical emergency in the history of our building.
The sounds from upstairs had escalated from whispered panic to full-blown crisis mode. I could hear Leo's voice through the ceiling now, getting louder and more desperate with each passing minute. "This isn't working. Nothing's working."