New Places

I moved to Kansas City during the summer of 2008 for a job that I thought would be a good place to start a career doing something, anything, on the internet. I got a small one bedroom apartment that had a reasonably sized living room (but no room for a dining table) and never had any major problems. A couple years passed and my girlfriend (going on four years) and I decided to move in together. I had had a good experience in my complex, so we decided to look there. We ended up getting a two bedroom apartment, nearly 1,000 square feet, almost double the size of my previous place. Little did I know, all is not equal within a community.

First was the mold. It seemed to be everywhere. The kitchen sink needed replacement parts because the gunk was encroaching on safe living. There was a spot in one tub that grew back within a day of bleaching it off. Caulk was an order. Next came the roaches. Maggie hates all bugs, so this was an evil that had to be stopped. Traps were bought, motels were strategically placed. We're playing the waiting game to get an exterminator to eradicate the fuckers.

Thursday night comes rolling around. Maggie wakes up thinking a mouse is rummaging around the bedroom. She wakes me up, I think it sounds like water. I figured the sink was dripping. I never checked a clock, but this was the hour for serial killers to be roaming among the unsuspecting. I prepared myself and got up to check it out. Nothing. The faucet wasn't partly on. The shower wasn't dripping. I tightened the knobs anyway. Back to bed. Drip. Drip. Drip. What the fuck is going on? I remembered we came back from our trip to Portland and noticed a water spot on the bedroom ceiling that we were sure wasn't there when we moved in. I turned on the lights. What came next was horrifying. There was water dripping about six inches from the old water spot. I come home from work to find out we have to schedule a time to have our ceiling ripped out. It was a leak with our dryer's ventilation or hose, or something. Now there's drooping closer to the bed. Chances are the ceiling is going to cave in, or worse, we're going to wake up in a flooded room with only seconds to escape before we drown. It's not only possible, it's probable.

Last night I killed a spider. I named him Stan.