Apartments and Strangers
Jun. 15th, 2011 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breezeshadowI went the cheap route for my apartment, in more ways than one. I'm paying half I paid for my own place, and I think it's probably about half the quality too. For one thing, I spent a year living alone -- which for a socially anxious introvert like me, is not entirely a horrible thing. Now, I have to get used to living with seven other strangers, in an apartment. It's like a dorm but more crowded, cheaper, and a hell of a lot stranger.
My old apartment wasn't exactly normal. The living room windows were sealed shut. The bedroom window was stuck open. I'm pretty sure some sort of water drainage horrors were happening in the toilet. The doorknob fell off of the front door once. Literally all of the warm air was sucked out of the broken window AND under the front door, so it was inevitably cooler in there than it was outside (made for a fun winter up until I got a space heater). There was a hole in the ceiling that went unnoticed until it poured water over the desk and ruined the lease for my new apartment. And the oven set off the fire alarm if you turned it on.
But this place... I haven't even been here twelve hours. I've only seen one other person, and only really looked through the bathrooms and the kitchen. And oh man. Oh man.
I'm going to be able to write a novel about this experience, I can tell. Here are my current theories/observations about the place, while currently a stranger in strange territory:
Theory I: That other guy is a very convincing robot. With night vision. This explains why there is no toilet paper; he has no need for it.
Theory II: They are seeing how many people they could kill with that staircase. Alternative Theory II: It's an intricate bomb set-up, so whatever you do, don't touch those wires.
Theory III: There is paper under the carpet. That explains the crackling. Alternative Theory III: The floors ARE paper and pretty soon I'm going to fall through.
Theory IV: They aren't making food with that stove. Not food for humans, at least.
Theory V: Okay, so I really don't have a theory for the vodka bottle with the pump nozzle on top of the fridge. Other than "WTF? Why?"
Theory VI: The mad scientist experiments were relocated to the upstairs bathroom after the stove became too carcinogenic. That's not water on the floor in the bathroom.
I'm hoping that some of these things will improve as time goes on, especially the horrors of the bathroom and kitchen (it's truly frightening, guys. I'm afraid to cook on that stove). Also maybe eventually that kid and I will exchange words (I saw him. He was wearing headphones. I think he saw me. But said nothing.) And I'm not kidding: there is NO toilet paper in this place, that I could find. Which may frighten me the most out of anything.
But for now, I will just observe. And be very confused. And try not to fall into a mess of panicking over graduate school, loans, rent, and strangers.
Tschuess.
My old apartment wasn't exactly normal. The living room windows were sealed shut. The bedroom window was stuck open. I'm pretty sure some sort of water drainage horrors were happening in the toilet. The doorknob fell off of the front door once. Literally all of the warm air was sucked out of the broken window AND under the front door, so it was inevitably cooler in there than it was outside (made for a fun winter up until I got a space heater). There was a hole in the ceiling that went unnoticed until it poured water over the desk and ruined the lease for my new apartment. And the oven set off the fire alarm if you turned it on.
But this place... I haven't even been here twelve hours. I've only seen one other person, and only really looked through the bathrooms and the kitchen. And oh man. Oh man.
I'm going to be able to write a novel about this experience, I can tell. Here are my current theories/observations about the place, while currently a stranger in strange territory:
Theory I: That other guy is a very convincing robot. With night vision. This explains why there is no toilet paper; he has no need for it.
Theory II: They are seeing how many people they could kill with that staircase. Alternative Theory II: It's an intricate bomb set-up, so whatever you do, don't touch those wires.
Theory III: There is paper under the carpet. That explains the crackling. Alternative Theory III: The floors ARE paper and pretty soon I'm going to fall through.
Theory IV: They aren't making food with that stove. Not food for humans, at least.
Theory V: Okay, so I really don't have a theory for the vodka bottle with the pump nozzle on top of the fridge. Other than "WTF? Why?"
Theory VI: The mad scientist experiments were relocated to the upstairs bathroom after the stove became too carcinogenic. That's not water on the floor in the bathroom.
I'm hoping that some of these things will improve as time goes on, especially the horrors of the bathroom and kitchen (it's truly frightening, guys. I'm afraid to cook on that stove). Also maybe eventually that kid and I will exchange words (I saw him. He was wearing headphones. I think he saw me. But said nothing.) And I'm not kidding: there is NO toilet paper in this place, that I could find. Which may frighten me the most out of anything.
But for now, I will just observe. And be very confused. And try not to fall into a mess of panicking over graduate school, loans, rent, and strangers.
Tschuess.
