Sometimes you've just got to get away, even if you're only escaping to the backyard.

Every once in a while, between requests to fix washing machines and unclog toilets, Nestoras likes to retire deep within the basement of the building to a small storage unit he liked to call "The Chamber Of Other People's Crap."

Every super has one, though maybe not so colorfully named. It's the place where the things left behind by former tenants go when the apartment gets cleaned out. Not the obviously broken stuff, of course. The old worn out furniture, the stained mattresses, the busted appliances, that all went in the garbage. But the good stuff - the things that still worked and were probably only left due to laziness of lack of space by the previous owner - stayed with the Supers of the city as sort of a bonus benefit of the job.

A lot of Supers, they sell the better stuff on eBay or Craigslist to supplement their income (after waiting an appropriate amount a time for the ex-tenant to reclaim it, of course). Others start to collect particular items. Nestoras's friend Solomon, for instance, has what most people in the business agreed was the largest collection of used vacuum cleaners in the city, if not the state.

Nestoras, he has his little room in the basement, a place where no one can reach him about a faulty smoke detector or stuck elevator. Among other things, there's a little HDTV, a mini-fridge, a Frankenstein-ian stereo cobbled together of mismatched components, and his baby, the Dream Chair.

Once Nestoras laid eyes on its baffled body cushion and head pillow sitting abandoned on the balcony of that empty apartment, he knew it was love. He eased himself into the contoured ergonomic seat, kicked up his legs, and swung gently from side to side as the memory of all the drains he'd snaked that morning melted away. It didn't take long for him to dismantle the thing and rebuild it down in the basement. Today it's the thing he looks forward to the most.

So now, even though he's been busy with emergency business all day, Nestoras escapes to his Super-cave to relax for a bit. He switches on the stereo, climbs into his Dream Chair, and smiles as he stares up into the removable umbrella. He begins to drift off. Besides, he thinks, that couple has been stuck in the elevator for a whole half an hour at this point. Another fifteen minutes isn't going to kill them.

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