Though not a particularly religious man, Aaron had been raised Jewish, and considered himself a good Jew. He attended synagogue as often as he could, which translated to as often as he felt like, which generally was about once a month. He was not especially spiritual, either, and really only went to synagogue in order to counter the numerous vices in his life, adultery being his sin of choice. Today, he felt exceptionally Jewish because he walked all the way down the block to the synagogue in a torrential downpour. His L.L. Bean rain jacket certainly did its job, and his sweater vest stayed reasonably dry during his trek. Towards the end of the service, in the middle of a prayer, a crazy Russian burst through the doors and stood wide-eyed at the end of the aisle. He attempted to produce a smile, which ended up an awkward grimace, and said "I'll just come back later then?" and turned and ran out as ungracefully as he had entered. "Blubbering idiot," Aaron thought. "The one day I decide to be a good Jewish boy and that fool has to ruin it for me!"

Aaron's morning only spiraled down from the interruption at synagogue. Hoping the weather had cleared up, he was abysmally disappointed when he exited the synagogue and the rain had only increased in magnitude. As a result of the sheer volume of water rushing down the streets, it appeared that the open manhole in the road had backed up, and sewage had joined the rainwater puddling at Aaron's feet. "Was that a head?" he asked himself. "It couldn't be...." he thought. Before he was able to inspect it further, a Mercedes-Benz flew by and splashed a mixture of mud and sewage onto Aaron's pants. The sludge dripped down his pant legs into his galoshes and soaked his wool socks. "Bloody psycho!" he shouted at the woman driving away from Watershed Heights. His day thoroughly ruined, Aaron walked back to his apartment in disgust.

Aaron unpacked his record player first, setting it on the floor as he had no furniture to place it upon. "Ah Chopin. My only friend," he muttered as he pulled out his record and set it playing. He turned the volume up as loud as it could go and blasted Chopin's Waltz No. 5 in A flat major. The neighbors may not like it, but hey, who doesn't like Chopin?

"Ha. What neighbors?" he thought. The only person he'd met so far was Marjorie, the woman he'd seen hanging around the first floor early on the morning he moved in. She was carrying a box of what seemed to be loads of laundry and inspecting the moldy walls outside what must have been her apartment. "I wonder what her story is," he thought. "She get kicked out too?" Maybe everyone in this whole blasted apartment building is only here because they can't stay anywhere else.

He let his thoughts return to the music, fully submitting his senses to the fluttering alto line and the hammering melody. One thing he enjoyed doing more than pretending to be British was pretending to be musical. Aaron had no rhythmic or musical talent whatsoever, but his facade of having a great appreciation for classical music tended to make people take him more seriously. "Maybe the neighbors will want to come over for tea sometime to discuss Brahms," he mused. "Or maybe they'll just want me to shut up."