If searching for an apartment has taught me nothing else, it's that – much like choosing a college, picking a political affiliation or watching Fox News – it's good to be cynical .
The whole process of finding a new place started with the best of intentions . All I wanted was a 3br 2ba wbfp in-unit wd ca hwfl duplex deck with heat included. What I found was a two-bed garden apartment with six-foot-high ceilings and a coach house that hasn't been cleaned since the Carter administration. And let's not forget the apartment-finding service agent that backed into a parked car while trying to get me to sign on said coach house. Description of the process would include the words “debacle” and “fiasco,” not to mention “a,” “bad” and “thing.”
And the nightmare didn't end there. I signed a new lease using post-dated checks and I'm hoping against hope my current landlord doesn't notice small problems like holes in the walls from parties gone awry and scuff marks up an entire wall from where a friend decided my hallway was the next closest thing to a climbing wall and shimmied up, feet on one side and back braced against the other.
Somehow in the last month, those problems were addressed, and now it's two days before my current lease runs out. A new issue emerges: Nothing is packed.
I'm hoping all my possessions will magically transport themselves into cardboard boxes – which I don't have – and those boxes will fantastically transport themselves to my new apartment, levitating in the ether of my apathy. I've found cynicism has a tendency to become indifference somewhere on the road of discovery, specifically, the road named “paying almost as much in rent per month as your parents pay on their mortgage.”
But there's always something interesting about packing and moving, because the process of taking stock of your life naturally emerges. You find an old cell phone at the bottom of a box and think, “I could use this for a prop in a movie, maybe,” ignoring the fact that not only have you never made a movie and have no desire to make a movie, but that you could also use your current phone to just the same effect.
Call me sarcastic and jaded, but moving is one diversion I could do without. There is an upside, though. At least I'll be able to – albeit cynically – take stock of how many unmatched socks I have.
