Doorman, Not Maintenance Man

It is good to have a doorman. Your packages get signed for while you are at work, and your plants get watered while you are out of town. If you have friends coming over but you are late getting home, you can call and have the doorman let them in your place.

But please, please do not ask us to fix things. That is what the maintenance men are for. We make more money than they do. Early this morning, Ben katz, who may or may not be named after two famous New York delicatessens, called down in a panic. He met a girl at a club last night, got her drunk, brought her home and she spent the night. When she got up this morning, the diamond ring she was wearing (not an engagement ring) was knocked down the drain in his bathroom sink.

She was crying, he was yelling and I was laughing. Needless to say, I called Roberto, the maintenance man, who is in the process of taking apart his entire sink as we speak.

Also, if you have a pest problem, call an exterminator. That's not my job. It's not my fault you drop food on the floor, it gets stuck under your couch or in the space between your stove and refrigerator and then you see mice, cockroaches and water bugs. Clean your own place and get your own mouse traps. Can no one do things for themselves? And don't get me started on the girls who don't know what to do when the pilot light goes out under their stoves.

Of course, for all this talk about the difference between doormen and maintenance men, just make sure your building management does a thorough criminal background check on the prospective maintenance men. They're a bunch of criminals.