Apartment living

It's probably one of the big-milestones of a person's life, moving out of the family home and moving into a dwelling that one can call their own (hopefully somewhere between graduating high school/college point and marriage). To free one's-self from vision and chores, to go out and swim into the bright light and beyond.

However this vision tends to lend itself useful, up to the point where you move out. Then you find out the dishes and laundry don't wash themselves like they use to, the garbage needs to be taken out, and all the stuff you took for granted you have to work for now. This is a major 'grow-up' part, where you have to take care of yourself 90% of the time and worry about everything else.

So, anyway, back to reality.

Being in a town with both a community college (kirkwood) and a university (University of Iowa), approximately 1/3 to 1/2 the city's population is of students, most of which come from out of town. So there are plenty of spots to choose from; however considering the largest company of the bunch is facing multiple class action lawsuits for taking all of a student's security deposit for a scratch in a door or a loose knob. Then you wonder why they change their name every other year, to try and mask their bad name.

Last Friday I made the move to...move. After doing some work during the summer break to find a spot I landed at one local apartment complex that offered good rooms at a fairly decent price (tad higher than I would like, however the place is taken care of and the people next door (as of yet) are not loud. While the initial goal was for a 1-room apartment, those were non-existent so plan B was a two-room. I looked at one other place before the one i chose, dialing the number and getting a short-tempered response "there's no open spots. I'm busy".

The place I landed in was very professional, clean, and courteous. From the time I went for a short tour to when i paid the deposit was 3 days. Yeah, it was that good.

The advantage I had over most people is that my parent's house was maybe a 7-10 minute drive away. So we packed the car maybe 3 times, taking stuff over then re-packing it while my mother unpacked boxes and put stuff in a place where it would seem fit. And we made it spill free, all the way up to the last trip and to the entryway of the apartment. The last load consisted of my desk chair and some glasses/silverware in a box. My dad put the box on the chair and wheeled it from the car to the apartment. Which really worked well, up to the entryway bump which sent the box to the floor with the crash that meant there were casualties. Don't blame my father, he is a guy after all and it DID make good sense for the chair idea. So anyway, we shifted through the box and three old glasses feel victim to gravity. However the other three on top survived, so not all was lost.

Still waiting on room mate to show up. It was nice he wasn't there to move around on Friday, and it makes for a quiet apartment for the time being. Hope he has more stuff to spruce up the kitchen/living room area.

I had to shop again for actual food. The initial stock that I started off with was a box of donut balls, spaghetti, pop-tarts and chicken soup (in cans). Not exactly the stuff that you want every meal. My second trip consisted of getting bread, bananas and some cereal. I had grabbed the the bread in anticipation of finding some ham/turkey slices. But alas, the meat gods had stricken me and hid their delicious food. So I had a loaf of bread with absolutely nothing to put on it. I mean, yeah I could just eat the bread itself but...ick. I would've soaked two slices in mt. dew and eat that, but let's face it, soggy green colored bread is not priority one at the moment.

Trip #3 was slightly more successful, this time acquiring ham/turkey, peanut butter, orange juice, waffles and hot pockets. MEAT! MEALS! SUCCESS!

Another kinda slightly amusing trip was going to the local cable provider to get a converter box. While cleaning apartments a while back I caught glimpse of a 13-inch clear case CRT TV by a dumpster. I didn't know if it worked or not, but it looked cool so I took it, and it actually worked, unlike most things found in or by dumpsters. With everything going digital I would need the converter to get the channels.

As my father and I expected there was a fairly small line with students wanting to get cable to their new homes. Considering the amount of foot traffic there were only two representatives helping customers so there was a bit of a wait. As usual the mood of most the people there were short fused: lots of waiting, stuff to sign and buy. Just needing the converter box the rep was good at getting the stuff and letting us walk out the door in under five minutes. Meanwhile the guy beside me who was helped at about the same time was going off that $40/month was the lowest price package. "I know. The company sucks!" He said in a 'harsh words but not trying to be harsh' tone of voice. I do not envy the rep's jobs. I hope they get good pay for doing that.

Other than driving a little farther to work and getting use to a new and bigger bed, life is more or less good. And if need be, the parent's house is a quick drive away. Picking myself up, I'd say.