The basement here at ye olde homestead is of the unfinished variety. It features a cracked and impossibly sloped concrete floor, bare stone walls, and unflattering lighting. It's not the kind of place where one would like to spend a lot of time. When we first moved into the house I made a few feeble attempts to make it not so much a "man-cave" (which is a horrible term by the way but it does define the concept fairly accurately) but perhaps a place that wasn't so dank and unpleasant to be in. We even had a ping pong table down there for a while. It wasn't an ideal set up for one because of the giant pipe that runs floor to ceiling on one side that inevitably a guest would run full speed into while trying to return one of my vicious volleys (That's straight-up home turf advantage. Visiting players get the pole side for the first game. You best respecig-nize), but it was a fun distraction for a while. The cat piddle palaces are also located in the basement and good lord it is difficult to keep the dust and kernels under control. There are some shitty windows down there but of course only one of them actually opens so proper ventilation can be a problem.
Since no one hangs out down there on what I would consider a regular basis aside from the cats, the basement has become even more unwelcoming. This makes chores like laundry and the aforementioned cat box maintenance very undesirable indeed. Throw in the occasional cat barf and/or house centipede (a.k.a. Demon Spawn) and I think I have succeeded in painting a picture for you. Basically I go down there, do whatever it is I have to do as quickly as I can and then I bug the hell out of there ASAP.
On Sunday I was down there doing some cleaning (the fucking cat litter just gets EVERYWHERE) when I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over to my right and saw a big, fat black spider walking swiftly and dare I say confidently towards my foot. I did what any grown man would do in this situation: I froze and emitted a slight squeaking sound. Eventually the flight instinct took over and I moved rapidly backwards tripping over the broken dehumidifier that has been sitting stoically in the middle of the basement for going on 2 years now. I somehow did not immediately fall over but instead managed to maintain not only my balance but also my retreat. Surprisingly, the spider did not see all this movement as a threat and continued its journey across the basement floor.
I looked around to find something sufficiently heavy with, hopefully, a very long handle to use as a weapon against the intruder but all I could find within reach was a 20lb barbell. I thought about using it but dismissed it as a bad choice when I realized just how accurate I would have to be hit a smallish moving target. Also it'd be too much like exercising. By the time I found a decent option (a crumpled piece of a cardboard box), the spider had disappeared. Where did it go? How is this even possible? It was RIGHT THERE a second ago! OMG is it above me now? What is that tickle I feel on my neck? IS IT IN MY SHIRT?! AHH! I'M COVERED IN SPIDERS!! Holy shit it's in my ear and burrowing into my brain right this very second! I decided that the only thing to do was to freak out and bound up the basement stairs while trying not to cry. I then took a Silkwood-style shower. I am not kidding.
Why do spiders freak me out so much? As a kid I actually liked them. My sister Mary and I formed a little group and we called ourselves "The Spider Club". We'd go to the basement stairwell and look at fat ugly spiders and marvel at their weird webs. We even fed ants to them sometimes. It was just a thing we did is all. Don't hate. No big whoop. [A little tangent here if you'll indulge me: Mary and I also formed another club that was called "The Spinning Club" (or was it "Spinners"? I forget). Our meeting place was a corner of the kitchen on the worn-out linoleum floor near the bathroom where we would spin around in circles on our hands and knees. You had to have your long PJs on so that your knees were covered and while balancing on one knee, you'd just spin yourself in a circle as fast as you possibly could until you fell over or got sick (sometimes both). It was pretty fly. This probably resembled a rudimentary form of break dancing although it was a good 8-10 years before either of us had even heard of that dance genre. Spinning in a circle is basically the kid version of getting high if you think about it.] But there is a direct cause that I can point to as to when my relationship with spiders turned from mild curiosity to abject terror.
I must have been about 12 or 13, and by this time, I had finally secured my very own bedroom which was located right off the kitchen and sported a ridiculous accordion door (y'know, for zero privacy). The room was small but it was all mine and I loved it. The main light for the room was one of those square light fixtures which seem to be a staple of tiny bedrooms (we just recently changed out the ones in our house). It was after dinner and had retired to my room to read. I didn't have a light near my bed so the overhead light was on. Those types of ceiling fixtures are typically a flying insect graveyard in the summer time as any bug that found its way into the house would eventually fly towards the light and roast itself on the dual 75 watt incandescent bulbs blazing away a mere 4 inches from the ceiling. Think double Easy-Bake Oven power here. I had noticed earlier that there was what appeared to be a bunch of crispy bugs casting a shadow towards the center of the square diffuser but being both lazy and a kid, I chose to ignore them.
As I was lying there totally lost in my reading, I felt something lightly touch my face and I sort of just brushed it away without really thinking much about it. As I did this, I happened to look up and noticed that pouring out from the center of the light fixture and spreading rapidly across the ceiling were HUNDREDS of tiny spiders. Several of them were already starting to cascade down on their whispery threads of evil to land on me and all of my things. I looked wide-eyed at the horrifying scene for another second and then I just started screaming. My mom came rushing in (LIKE A BOSS) and assessed the situation. She returned seconds later with a broom and swung that thing wildly and with deadly force. I have no idea if she actually was successful in killing all of the freshly spawned spiders but I choose to believe that she did.
I must have passed out or gone into a fear coma or something because I can't for the life of me remember anything else from that night. I don't know where I slept that night but most likely it was right back in that room with the covers over my head and tucked tightly around me. Oh man, I didn't even have a closet in that tiny room so all my clothes were hung up on this modified coat hook system all exposed to the goddam spider assault. I probably wore spiders-infested shirts for a week after that. So yeah, that's why I fucking hate spiders and I think I have earned this phobia.
I just realized that the basement spider is still roaming free down there somewhere. Maybe I'll ask the Wiff to go kill it for me.
Showing posts with label apartment living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label apartment living. Show all posts
Monday, October 8, 2012
Friday, February 11, 2011
To Hell with Kix, I Want Quisp
I have three sisters; two older and one younger. Sometimes when I tell people that they say things like, "Oh, that must have been hard for you growing up. Y'know, being the only boy, huh?" Nope. Not at all. Think about it: My oldest sister Theresa (we call her "Tree" by the way) was saddled with the burden of having to break-in our parents. She had to test all their rules and limits to see where the weak points were (and she found them too...woo-boy did she ever). Patty, the second-oldest, kinda got the shaft. I mean, Tree is the oldest, I'm the only boy, and Mary is the youngest (I can't call her "the baby"...cuz she'll punch me in the arm). So Patty is Jan. No one wants to be Jan (not even Eve Plumb). Patty showed us all up though by being the only one of us (so far) to produce an offspring. She single-handedly made sure that our giant-head genes were passed on to the next generation. And Mary had to deal with me as an older brother. Shit, I had it easy.
Growing up in a small apartment with 4 kids, 2 parents and a grandmother made for an interesting childhood. The place where we lived until 1986 didn't have much in the way of real doors either. Most of the rooms, including the bedrooms, had those shitty vinyl accordion folding doors (I tried to find an example of those doors but none of the pics did them justice. Suffice it to say that they were cheap and would come out of their tracks nearly every time you tried to open or close them). Yeah, that doesn't really cut it if you're looking for some privacy or if you don't want monsters to come in your room. Only the bathroom had a real door but it was the only bathroom for 7 people (did mention that I have 3 sisters? I did? oh, ok). This is one of the reasons I wanted a single-family house. I wanted some goddamn privacy and some real doors.
Mom used to like to rearrange the rooms in the apartment. And I don't mean just moving where the couch is. No, she would swap out entire rooms. This meant that my bedroom, at one point or another, had been relocated to every room in that apartment with the exception of the kitchen. The kitchen was the only room that remained constant. She liked to keep us on our toes I guess. I did eventually get my own room (once Tree went off to college) but it suffered from the lack of a door as well. And since it was right off the noisiest room in the house; the kitchen, it was occasionally hard to go to sleep (especially with the kitchen light beaming through the slats in my "door").
For most of that time we were a single-income household and I can't for the life of me figure out how the hell my parents managed that (Mom went back to work when Mary turned 6 or 7). I mean, we were nice kids and all but holy shit we'd eat you out of house and home. I mean look at these faces. These are the faces of kids who meant business.
How did I get that cut on my chin? A simple story there. Patty and I would take my Tonka trucks to the top of the street where we lived and then we'd sit on them while they hurtled down the hilly sidewalk. It was fun AND dangerous! Double score! You'd think that I got that cut from a spectacular yellow dump truck wipe-out involving a neighbor's car suddenly pulling out a driveway (although that happened too) but no, I got that when I fell off the curb walking back up the hill to do it all over again. I am quite clumsy you see.
My dad's job driving a delivery truck in Boston required him to get up at an ungodly hour to start his shift. He then would come home about 12 hours later (sometimes later, depending on how shitty his day was) where we would attack him at the front door. Can you imagine four bobble-headed kids barreling down a long hallway towards you after a long day? Holy shit. After flinging ourselves at him we'd demand his attention for the next hour or so while he tried desperately to wind down from work. Dinner would be served by 6PM or so and we'd all sit in the kitchen watching TV and fighting over the last sawdust-dry pork chop or stuck-together spaghetti. After dinner everyone would go about their business (homework, washing dishes, getting ready for bed, punching each other) while Dad would remain in the kitchen doing his crossword puzzle with the TV on. He'd usually start to nod off at the kitchen table with Mom saying "John, why don't you just go to bed?". Because he's stubborn dammit. He'll go to bed when HE wants to! Or at least not until he nods off for the 10th time and his cigarette burns yet another hole in the cable rug around the kitchen table.
Dad also did the weekly grocery shopping for the family on Saturday mornings. Since he was so hard to get him to ourselves during the week, it was considered a special treat to be the one who got to go with him. Not only did it mean that you got Dad all to yourself for a good couple hours but more importantly it meant that you got to choose the cereals for the week. That was a highly coveted position to be in and we'd get pretty competitive about who got to go. Being the one to pick out the cereals for the week was basically the kid equivalent of winning the lottery (now with marshmallow bits!). Another bonus was – depending on how long it took to do the shopping – Dad would sometimes take the one who was with him to Brigham's for an ice-cream. Holy shit. That was huge. An ice-cream that you didn't have to scarf down in fear that the others were waiting for you to let your guard down to swoop in and take the rest (at least that's what it felt like). You could sit there at the counter and listen to the grown-ups talk about whatever the hell they were talking about and just ENJOY your ice-cream.
As we got older of course it became less special to spend your Saturday morning in a Ceratani's grocery store pushing a shopping cart up and down aisles that had saw dust all over the floor (what was with the saw dust anyway? Was it meant to sop up spills? Cuz all it really did was make most of the floor really slippery and it would clog up the front wheels on the cart. Most of the carts at Ceratani's had wheels that were completely jacked-up). I would still go with him every now and then through high school but it was not the same. We didn't have the connection that I think we both wanted at that time in our lives. I think I was there mainly so that he'd have someone to carry all the stuff up to the 3rd floor of the apartment building. And eventually – after some pretty intense arguments that we had about the choices I was making – I stopped going with him on Saturdays completely. We just didn't get along if I'm honest. We barely spoke for months during my last year of high school. Basically he had called me out on my bullshit and at the time I hadn't been mature enough to agree with him and change. Now I get it and I'm glad he did that. I'm glad that I grew a pair and told him that he was correct before he died. It's been 14 years since he passed away and this June it'll be 16 years since Mom died. I can't believe that. Those numbers seem impossible. I'm glad I had them as my parents.
Growing up in a small apartment with 4 kids, 2 parents and a grandmother made for an interesting childhood. The place where we lived until 1986 didn't have much in the way of real doors either. Most of the rooms, including the bedrooms, had those shitty vinyl accordion folding doors (I tried to find an example of those doors but none of the pics did them justice. Suffice it to say that they were cheap and would come out of their tracks nearly every time you tried to open or close them). Yeah, that doesn't really cut it if you're looking for some privacy or if you don't want monsters to come in your room. Only the bathroom had a real door but it was the only bathroom for 7 people (did mention that I have 3 sisters? I did? oh, ok). This is one of the reasons I wanted a single-family house. I wanted some goddamn privacy and some real doors.
Mom used to like to rearrange the rooms in the apartment. And I don't mean just moving where the couch is. No, she would swap out entire rooms. This meant that my bedroom, at one point or another, had been relocated to every room in that apartment with the exception of the kitchen. The kitchen was the only room that remained constant. She liked to keep us on our toes I guess. I did eventually get my own room (once Tree went off to college) but it suffered from the lack of a door as well. And since it was right off the noisiest room in the house; the kitchen, it was occasionally hard to go to sleep (especially with the kitchen light beaming through the slats in my "door").
For most of that time we were a single-income household and I can't for the life of me figure out how the hell my parents managed that (Mom went back to work when Mary turned 6 or 7). I mean, we were nice kids and all but holy shit we'd eat you out of house and home. I mean look at these faces. These are the faces of kids who meant business.
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| No, I don't know what I'm looking at. All I know is that I'm the only one who was classy enough to get dressed for this photo. Vesty/stripey shirt thing? Check. Wide-as-fuck shiny, white belt? Check. Just a hint of belly showing? Check and mate bitches. |
My dad's job driving a delivery truck in Boston required him to get up at an ungodly hour to start his shift. He then would come home about 12 hours later (sometimes later, depending on how shitty his day was) where we would attack him at the front door. Can you imagine four bobble-headed kids barreling down a long hallway towards you after a long day? Holy shit. After flinging ourselves at him we'd demand his attention for the next hour or so while he tried desperately to wind down from work. Dinner would be served by 6PM or so and we'd all sit in the kitchen watching TV and fighting over the last sawdust-dry pork chop or stuck-together spaghetti. After dinner everyone would go about their business (homework, washing dishes, getting ready for bed, punching each other) while Dad would remain in the kitchen doing his crossword puzzle with the TV on. He'd usually start to nod off at the kitchen table with Mom saying "John, why don't you just go to bed?". Because he's stubborn dammit. He'll go to bed when HE wants to! Or at least not until he nods off for the 10th time and his cigarette burns yet another hole in the cable rug around the kitchen table.
Dad also did the weekly grocery shopping for the family on Saturday mornings. Since he was so hard to get him to ourselves during the week, it was considered a special treat to be the one who got to go with him. Not only did it mean that you got Dad all to yourself for a good couple hours but more importantly it meant that you got to choose the cereals for the week. That was a highly coveted position to be in and we'd get pretty competitive about who got to go. Being the one to pick out the cereals for the week was basically the kid equivalent of winning the lottery (now with marshmallow bits!). Another bonus was – depending on how long it took to do the shopping – Dad would sometimes take the one who was with him to Brigham's for an ice-cream. Holy shit. That was huge. An ice-cream that you didn't have to scarf down in fear that the others were waiting for you to let your guard down to swoop in and take the rest (at least that's what it felt like). You could sit there at the counter and listen to the grown-ups talk about whatever the hell they were talking about and just ENJOY your ice-cream.
As we got older of course it became less special to spend your Saturday morning in a Ceratani's grocery store pushing a shopping cart up and down aisles that had saw dust all over the floor (what was with the saw dust anyway? Was it meant to sop up spills? Cuz all it really did was make most of the floor really slippery and it would clog up the front wheels on the cart. Most of the carts at Ceratani's had wheels that were completely jacked-up). I would still go with him every now and then through high school but it was not the same. We didn't have the connection that I think we both wanted at that time in our lives. I think I was there mainly so that he'd have someone to carry all the stuff up to the 3rd floor of the apartment building. And eventually – after some pretty intense arguments that we had about the choices I was making – I stopped going with him on Saturdays completely. We just didn't get along if I'm honest. We barely spoke for months during my last year of high school. Basically he had called me out on my bullshit and at the time I hadn't been mature enough to agree with him and change. Now I get it and I'm glad he did that. I'm glad that I grew a pair and told him that he was correct before he died. It's been 14 years since he passed away and this June it'll be 16 years since Mom died. I can't believe that. Those numbers seem impossible. I'm glad I had them as my parents.
 |
| Mmmm...pie and cigarettes |
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Maybe Lynn Ain't So Bad
Spring is here and with the warmer temperatures we will soon be opening our windows up. This is also when I start to regret buying a house on a busy street. I love my house, don't get me wrong, I just don't like where it is. When we were trying to sell it a couple of years ago (oh, and holy crap am I glad that we didn't end up selling it too by the way. With the economy the way it is currently, I'm quite happy with a mortgage that I can afford thank you very much) one of the main motivators was how much traffic noise there is here. Say what you will about winter but at least it's quieter in my house when all the windows are closed. I dread motorcycle season.
This house is the first place I've lived that wasn't an apartment. When we were looking I briefly thought about looking at 2 family houses but quickly realized that I was really tired of living above, below or right next to someone else. I wanted a single family house so that whatever noise there may be, it came from us. Although on a busy street that really isn't true either. But I digress (whatta surprise!).
I spent the first 16 years of my life living in a first floor apartment of a little 2 family house. The people who owned the place lived right upstairs and didn't allow my dad to park his car in the driveway. Another weird "feature" of that place was the fact that we didn't have any real doors (the exception being the bathroom door). All the doors were removed and replaced with those accordion door things. Y'know, the ones that don't offer anything in the way of privacy? Nor do they block sound or light which is a problem if your bedroom is right off of the kitchen. You know what sucks? Being a 15 year old boy with 3 sisters and no real door on your bedroom. We eventually moved to a shitty complex (Bryant Terrace HOLLA!) a few blocks over. I still have relatives living over there and the apartments are not a depressing as I remember. I think it may have been my own attitude (shocking isn't it?). I finally got a for-realsies door though.
After the college thing (long story) I moved out and had a series of apartments until I met Amy (The Wiff). Our first place together was this tiny place in Allston. Since neither of us drove it didn't bother us that there was never anywhere to park in the neighborhood. Unfortunately this apartment was near a couple of frat houses so 2 a.m. wake-up-calls for drunk morons smashing things on the street became the norm. When these instances started happening on Tuesdays, we realized that maybe we should move. Oh, that and the time that somebody got stabbed right below our bedroom window (actual quote: "Dude! You STABBED ME!!"). Yea, that may have been the motivating factor.
We then moved to the International House of Whack-jobs in Somerville. I should have guessed that this would not be a great place to live when I got hit by a car on my bike while I was on my way to meet up with Amy to see the apartment. Kind of a cosmic warning shot across my bow (except it was in the form of a Jaguar and it did in fact hit me). The apartment itself was ok but there were a number of incidents that made us move out a little more than a year later. The one that stands out was I was in the living room and I kept hearing this huge THUD! sound coming from our kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and sort of stood there waiting for the noise to happen again. I didn't have to wait long. THUD! Hmm, it's not coming from the THUD! kitchen, it appears to be coming THUD! from the apartment directly THUD! above THUD! us (there were 6 apts total in the building, we were on the second floor). What the fuck are they THUD! doing up there?
So I went up the back stairway to our neighbor's back THUD! door. I knocked (ok, I pounded) on the door and waited for the door to open. Nothing. THUD! THUD! THUD! It was increasing in intensity. I banged again. Finally a little dude opened the door and he was holding a baseball bat. Ok, didn't see that coming. He didn't seem hostile or anything and so I asked him if he could keep the noise down. Meanwhile the door was still creeping open (the whole building was sinking in the middle due to it being constructed of balsa wood and paper-mâché on a crumbling foundation of stale cookies) to reveal that there were 2 other guys in there also with bats standing around the kitchen table. Laying on the table was a giant slab of some indeterminate meat (goat? lamb?). They were tenderizing it. I cannot make this shit up. I said "What was all that banging anyway?" So, one of the guys showed me. He reeled back and gave the side of meat an all-mighty whack. His once white T-shirt I noticed had a fine mist of blood covering his belly. He grinned at me. Carry on men. I'll be perusing the apartment listings of the local paper thank you very much.
At the time I had a job working for CSG doing energy audits for people (same company as the Hate Bus, different gig. I'll explain later in another installment of Vocational Errors) so I got to see quite a variety of places that may be potential rentals. As it turned out, one of my customers had a place for rent right down the street in an old funky building. He had cut up this gorgeous building into 8 separate apartments of descending quality. I think we got the flagship apartment. The landlord guy (Dan I think?) was a grade-A nut job who cut so many corners on his renovations to that place that it had reached the point where things were really starting to fall apart. But there was no one beating up dead animals there so we moved in.
Everything seemed ok for a bit and then we started to notice that not only was Dan odd but he was also home all the goddamned time. He had all these bizzarro rules and regulations which he posted all over the common areas of the building. He drove us crazy (Amy more so as he would talk to her a lot). In the basement below our apartment was an illegal apartment. The guy who rented this one was a male stripper who would practice at home with the windows open. Oh, come on man. How am I supposed to compete with that? Invest in some fucking shades will ya? He would blast this god awful techno bullshit that would thump thump thump me into a blind fury. I would stomp on the floor trying to get him to understand that there is a pasty white guy up here who not only doesn't want to be reminded of how he is soooo not qualified to be a stripper but would like a little quiet please. Sometimes he'd turn it down and sometimes he wouldn't. He didn't know that I knew where the fuse panel for his apartment was. I would just turn his power off. I dunno if he ever figured out it was me or if he just thought his stereo was too powerful.
It was all these little battles and petty arguments over space that made me pine for a place of my own. A place not attached to someone else's place. We've been here since 1998 now and have come to the conclusion that all those projects that we figured would be "the next guy's problem" are in reality our problem. We ARE the "next guys". Last week I had a friend of mine who does construction come over and give me some advice on a kitchen renovation. This could be huge. I think I love my house.
This house is the first place I've lived that wasn't an apartment. When we were looking I briefly thought about looking at 2 family houses but quickly realized that I was really tired of living above, below or right next to someone else. I wanted a single family house so that whatever noise there may be, it came from us. Although on a busy street that really isn't true either. But I digress (whatta surprise!).
I spent the first 16 years of my life living in a first floor apartment of a little 2 family house. The people who owned the place lived right upstairs and didn't allow my dad to park his car in the driveway. Another weird "feature" of that place was the fact that we didn't have any real doors (the exception being the bathroom door). All the doors were removed and replaced with those accordion door things. Y'know, the ones that don't offer anything in the way of privacy? Nor do they block sound or light which is a problem if your bedroom is right off of the kitchen. You know what sucks? Being a 15 year old boy with 3 sisters and no real door on your bedroom. We eventually moved to a shitty complex (Bryant Terrace HOLLA!) a few blocks over. I still have relatives living over there and the apartments are not a depressing as I remember. I think it may have been my own attitude (shocking isn't it?). I finally got a for-realsies door though.
After the college thing (long story) I moved out and had a series of apartments until I met Amy (The Wiff). Our first place together was this tiny place in Allston. Since neither of us drove it didn't bother us that there was never anywhere to park in the neighborhood. Unfortunately this apartment was near a couple of frat houses so 2 a.m. wake-up-calls for drunk morons smashing things on the street became the norm. When these instances started happening on Tuesdays, we realized that maybe we should move. Oh, that and the time that somebody got stabbed right below our bedroom window (actual quote: "Dude! You STABBED ME!!"). Yea, that may have been the motivating factor.
We then moved to the International House of Whack-jobs in Somerville. I should have guessed that this would not be a great place to live when I got hit by a car on my bike while I was on my way to meet up with Amy to see the apartment. Kind of a cosmic warning shot across my bow (except it was in the form of a Jaguar and it did in fact hit me). The apartment itself was ok but there were a number of incidents that made us move out a little more than a year later. The one that stands out was I was in the living room and I kept hearing this huge THUD! sound coming from our kitchen. I walked into the kitchen and sort of stood there waiting for the noise to happen again. I didn't have to wait long. THUD! Hmm, it's not coming from the THUD! kitchen, it appears to be coming THUD! from the apartment directly THUD! above THUD! us (there were 6 apts total in the building, we were on the second floor). What the fuck are they THUD! doing up there?
So I went up the back stairway to our neighbor's back THUD! door. I knocked (ok, I pounded) on the door and waited for the door to open. Nothing. THUD! THUD! THUD! It was increasing in intensity. I banged again. Finally a little dude opened the door and he was holding a baseball bat. Ok, didn't see that coming. He didn't seem hostile or anything and so I asked him if he could keep the noise down. Meanwhile the door was still creeping open (the whole building was sinking in the middle due to it being constructed of balsa wood and paper-mâché on a crumbling foundation of stale cookies) to reveal that there were 2 other guys in there also with bats standing around the kitchen table. Laying on the table was a giant slab of some indeterminate meat (goat? lamb?). They were tenderizing it. I cannot make this shit up. I said "What was all that banging anyway?" So, one of the guys showed me. He reeled back and gave the side of meat an all-mighty whack. His once white T-shirt I noticed had a fine mist of blood covering his belly. He grinned at me. Carry on men. I'll be perusing the apartment listings of the local paper thank you very much.
At the time I had a job working for CSG doing energy audits for people (same company as the Hate Bus, different gig. I'll explain later in another installment of Vocational Errors) so I got to see quite a variety of places that may be potential rentals. As it turned out, one of my customers had a place for rent right down the street in an old funky building. He had cut up this gorgeous building into 8 separate apartments of descending quality. I think we got the flagship apartment. The landlord guy (Dan I think?) was a grade-A nut job who cut so many corners on his renovations to that place that it had reached the point where things were really starting to fall apart. But there was no one beating up dead animals there so we moved in.
Everything seemed ok for a bit and then we started to notice that not only was Dan odd but he was also home all the goddamned time. He had all these bizzarro rules and regulations which he posted all over the common areas of the building. He drove us crazy (Amy more so as he would talk to her a lot). In the basement below our apartment was an illegal apartment. The guy who rented this one was a male stripper who would practice at home with the windows open. Oh, come on man. How am I supposed to compete with that? Invest in some fucking shades will ya? He would blast this god awful techno bullshit that would thump thump thump me into a blind fury. I would stomp on the floor trying to get him to understand that there is a pasty white guy up here who not only doesn't want to be reminded of how he is soooo not qualified to be a stripper but would like a little quiet please. Sometimes he'd turn it down and sometimes he wouldn't. He didn't know that I knew where the fuse panel for his apartment was. I would just turn his power off. I dunno if he ever figured out it was me or if he just thought his stereo was too powerful.
It was all these little battles and petty arguments over space that made me pine for a place of my own. A place not attached to someone else's place. We've been here since 1998 now and have come to the conclusion that all those projects that we figured would be "the next guy's problem" are in reality our problem. We ARE the "next guys". Last week I had a friend of mine who does construction come over and give me some advice on a kitchen renovation. This could be huge. I think I love my house.
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