homeless week: a rant

I spent my Friday afternoon, evening, and night moving essentially everything I own. Am I switching apartments, you may ask.

No, I would answer. No I am not.

You see, my apartment complex has this fun little thing they like to call a "contract gap." This means that there is a nine day break between the end of summer contracts and the beginning of fall contracts, a time period that is "affectionately" called Homeless Week. And yes, this applies to everybody, even those of us who lived here all summer and will continue to live here in the fall.

What it all comes down to is this: for a week and a half, I am homeless and have nowhere to live. Oh, but don't you worry your little heads. They have some wonderful solutions for this rather unfortunate event!

1. Go on vacation. While this is an ideal solution, it doesn't quite work for everybody. Because vacation costs money. And being on vacation means you're not working, which means you're not making money. A wee bit problematic for most college kids.

2. Couch Surf. Now this is a problem for antisocial people like myself, because quite frankly, I don't know very many unmarried people outside of my apartment complex. And the ones I do know, I don't know well enough to ask them to crash on their couch for nine days. Or even if I do know them well enough, I just don't like imposing on people, and having some random person essentially living in your apartment for a week-and-a-half feels like a pretty big imposition. And it just gets complicated, because you have to live out of a suitcase and the chances of getting locked out of your pseudo home are high. And then there is the work issue. I need to be close to work, because I don't have access to my car often enough that I can drive to work.

3. Continue to live in my apartment sleeping in my bed and pay $20 dollars a night to do so plus a $25 dollar fee to store my things. The problems with this solution (the one that I've unfortunately had to go with) will pretty much be the subject of the remainder of this post. Hold onto your hats. And kudos to you if you make it through the rest.

Let's do some math. (Yes, I just pulled out a calculator to make sure I'd done it right. Judge if you want.) To avoid having to move everything out of your apartment for nine days only to have to move it right back in AND to have a place to sleep for those nine days, we have to fork over 205 big ones. $205!! Can we please just take a moment to bask in the ridiculousness of that sum? (To be fair, I am going to be gone for four nights of homeless week for mission homecomings, so I only had to pay $125. And don't call me a hypocrite after that Students-Can't-Always-Afford-Vacation rant, because I'm only taking one day off of work, I'm staying with friends, and these trips are only going to cost me gas money.)

Done basking? Yeah, me too.

And, you know, I thought that was bad enough. But then a few days ago, we were told that if we're leaving our things in the apartment for homeless week, EVERYTHING has to be on our bed or in the closet. EVERYTHING. We're talking food, pots and pans, desks, TVs. EVERYTHING. So basically I'm paying $25 to avoid moving everything I own, and yet I still had to move everything I own. I think we need another moment of ridiculousness awareness. Go ahead and ruminate on the logic of this situation.

I haven't found any logic in this situation, have you? Didn't think so. And if you need visual proof of how gosh-darned silly this is, here are a few photos of my bedroom. Just to note, this is not the extent of the ridiculous storage going on in my neck of the woods. There are other things stored in the closet and on the beds in the other bedroom (my roommate is moving out, so the space was free for the taking), but I was just too lazy to take more pictures. Plus, you get the gist.

I call this one "Stuff that Goes Under My Bed, All the Food I Have to My Name, and Other Miscellaneous Items."

The shoes and such belong The kitchen utensils (in the plastic bags on the hangers...I was quite proud of myself for that genius space-saving idea), bathroom items, nesting doll measuring cups, and "mail basket" (read: random junk basket) do not.

I'm particularly proud of this balancing act. If you ever need somebody to help you stack all of your kitchen ware in a closet, hit me up. I'm you're girl.

The reasoning behind this is that they're going to "deep clean" the apartments. They "deep cleaned" last summer too, but they were miraculously able to do this without forcing me to shove my knife block in a laundry basket with miscellaneous bathroom items, an apron, laundry detergent, and two sweatshirts. I suppose that the mechanics of deep cleaning have somehow changed in the past year.

So here I am, writing this blog post on my bedroom floor because my bed is taken up by a desk, a printer, a step stool, and a gallon of distilled water. I'm expecting the carpet I'm currently parked on to look brand new by the time they're finished "deep cleaning." And the cabinets must sparkle and shine and maybe have some glitter or rubies thrown in there. And if these new deep cleaning standards can turn regular cabinets into magical cabinets that refill with all my favorite foods whenever I so desire, I will take down this post immediately, retract any complaining I may have done up until this point, and turn my life savings over to the complex. You are my witness.

Whew. I feel a little better now.

Oh, and did I mention that we have to pass a "white glove" cleaning check prior to the deep cleaning magicians coming in to do their thing? Because heaven forbid the apartment is a little messy when the cleaners come. It would be a tragedy. An embarrassment. A crime against humanity, practically.

Okay. I'm really done now.

Let's end on a positive note. Positivity is a good thing, I'm told. (Also, Chrome is telling me that positivity isn't a word. But Merriam Webster says it is, so poo poo on you and your stupid red squiggle of shame, Chrome.)

If you are reading this, that means I'm road tripping with Melanie Mei to see one of our freshman roommates who just returned to the States from the exotic Philippines!It'll be a whirlwind trip, but I'm quite confident that every moment will be jam packed with laughter and good times.

And here's to me coming home to an apartment that's been "deep cleaned" seven ways to Sunday. (Don't worry, I'm not actually expecting the self-filling cabinets. It'd be nice, though.)