The above picture is my alarm clock at the apartment. Monday through Friday, 7am-5pm, you can see my wooden fence line and my proximity to the construction. As of today, I’m officially toast. Last night I heard the neighbors had an infestation of mice, and I had a moment of relief we have cats…but that moment was interrupted for these not-so-favorable commercial breaks:

(1) The internet and cable went out for a day, due to the cable company themselves, cutting their 2nd wire in a week. They have warned me to expect spotty outages over the next several days. Not sure how that’s different from any other day, so I shall continue as planned.

(2) As the cable team left after a 2-hour trouble-shooting, the A/C went out. Probably not the best time for the front office to hear from me…again…as they had the unpleasant job of telling me the owners of the apartment feel they’ve done their best to make our stay comfortable, and no restitution on their part is required. It was hard to hear their entire justification for my camping trip from hell, over the noise, and the repairman ripping the thermostat off the wall, and saying, “Oh…NO”…but I think I got their drift. I’ve been rented a lemon. YUM.

They feel the safety fence and only doing construction on weekdays is a sufficient level of comfort. And sometimes apartments just have bad luck and fall apart. As long as they keep on fixing things, I should be happy. At this rate, I’ll need that maintenance guy to move in. Move in where? That half-bath still has a dead guy in it, so let’s not start there…

At this moment, I feel taken. I feel upset. I feel a huge company could have put more thought into such a large project occurring on someone’s doorstep. I feel I should comfort the neighbor screaming in the court that she’s hiring a lawyer because her online class performance is suffering. I feel I should tell her she’s yelling at the wrong cable company. Her company didn’t cut that cable…mine did.

OK, I’m back. She still wants to sue someone. She should probably take off her shower cap first, but I wasn’t about to make fashion suggestions after being in a sweltering apartment all day. I look HIGH-LARE-EE-US right now.

Onward. I feel I waited too long to find my Spica splint after my thumb starting popping weeks ago. Now I have the pleasure of feeling shooting pains up and down my arm, and no longer enjoy the use of my right hand. (Insert second moment of gratefulness that I am ambidextrous). In an attempt to find a 3rd moment of gratitude, I drove us to the house. I don’t know where my lovely team of framers went, but they were replaced by the scariest lookin’ dudes I’ve ever seen. And my Lord, the smoke. It made the dead guy behind my hot water heater smell like perfume. Remember when Gary Oldman played Drexl Spivey in Quentin Tarantino’s “True Romance”? Of course you don’t. Only 2 people watched that movie, and it was me and my college roomie.

Anyway. My house was full of the scariest character ever played by the great Gary Oldman, which was a Detroit drug dealer created in the mind of Quentin Tarantino. That’s math even I can do accurately, and we exited as quickly as we entered. And on that note, I always thought he was Gary OldHAM, which was TOTALLY wrong, as his name is actually Gary OldMAN. He is indeed an OLD MAN, not an OLD HAM, really changing my perspective on life, the Universe…what have you. On the off-chance you’re still reading, here is an unrelated reference: The Steve Miller Band’s “Big Old Jet Airliner” is NOT “Bingo Jet Had A Light On”. My rant just turned in an education in The Arts. You’re welcome.

I picked out this apartment on a very blustery day. I was told construction may start, to the east of my building, sometime next fall, right around our move-out date. There were deer at my back door, and a shady treeline. It was quiet here, and everything was new. The building was old, but the apartment was new. It smelled nice. I often think back to that day. The day I signed on this 10 cent diamond not worth a dime, and I wonder: Why did they leave so much out of their brochure? Such adventure! Such intrigue! Such need to receive legal counsel! Ugh. I’ll go now. Save it for the judge Lori! And you can take that literally…

If you’d care to read about the “World’s Record For The Most Things Breaking In An Apartment In One Summer” (I promise, you’ll laugh. And drink…but you’ll laugh while you’re drinking, which is always good.):

Welcome To Mayberry

Adventures In Apartment Living

Resilience Comes Suddenly

The Poop Pile and The Shit Box

Laughing In The Rain

This Temporary Moment

Sow’s It Going?

Godspeed my friends. Always, and most certainly this summer…Godspeed.