Okay Universe...I fucking learned my lesson already...
I'm not a religious person. I'd like to think the second I learned how to think--I mean really think for myself about what I find important, what I find right, what I find wrong...that's when I decided religion just isn't for me. I am of the thought process that seeing is believing. Feeling is believe what you want to believe. It's not always what is. As someone who grew up with a Southern Baptist Minister for a grandfather--well I think it's safe to say I've seen and lived both sides of the coin. And when I was old enough to decide, I decided that the Bible is a bunch of really great stories. Some important shit happened in there...do I wanna use some 2,000 year old book to tell me who is going to this "heaven" and who is burning in the eternal fires of damnation? Not so much.
To be honest, life can really be hell. It can also be pretty heavenly. And who am I to tell someone they're going one place or the other based on my interpretation of some dusty old school graphic novel that's not even cool enough to have any art to go along with it's smiteful tales of people getting eaten by whales or fighting giants? I don't want that kind of responsibility. I misinterpret shit all the time...I'm wrong a lot when it comes to big life lessons. In fact...I choose the wrong choice all the fucking time. A lesson, in my world, isn't learned until it's really ruined my life. I mean--I don't just hear something and think--oh, maybe I shouldn't do that...no I need to REALLY learn a fucking lesson. I mean, really, really.
Some people, well, they can learn from tales in a book. People can read about a sinner that gets stoned to death and maybe they don't steal that bread. They can read that pre-marital sex will send you straight to hell and they abstain from the sweet sweet delights of the horizontal mambo until some man in a robe weds them officially. Others can spend an hour in front of the television after school watching a special about how drugs ruin lives and fall for those scrambled egg commercials and stay far far away from the joy juice. Well I don't need God to tell me I've fucked up. I don't need a god to tell me I'm going to hell. I don't need anyone else fucking judging me. But for some reason the Universe sure likes to play games with me...
For some people...watching others fail is good enough for them to learn. They see the possible outcomes and they avoid the horrible endings. They listen when people tell them that the stove is hot. Their fingers go unburned. Their vaginas go unviolated by large dicks because they've made a vow to only have sex with God until they're married--or something like that...
Not this girl. Nope. I have to learn everything the hard way. I have to fall face first in to a pile of life lesson shit. I have to really get in there and floss with the leftover corn kernels before I get it. I didn't start out that way. I didn't drink. Didn't do drugs. Definitely didn't have sex. Then one day I saw someone enjoying a beer--and I didn't want to be left out. I saw someone smoke a bowl and I didn't want to be left out. I didn't see anyone having sex, per say, but I heard how fucking awesome it was and I didn't want to be left out. I waited to lose my virginity until I was "in love." I waited 20 mutha-fuckin years to pop that cherry. And you know what that got me? A verbal, bordering on abusive, 5 year relationship that majorly fucked with my head and pretty much ruined any other guy's chance at warming my cold cold heart...all for a pretty face I thought I loved...
I drank, a lot. Still do on occasion. And I drove. Had to get home. Everyone else was driving home. I didn't want to pay for cabs. Sometimes I woke up in my bed not knowing how I got there and saw my car in the lot. No one was with me. I drove my damn self and had no memory. I drove other people home and don't remember. Sometimes, what's worse, is I did remember driving. I remember driving down the wrong side of the street. I remembered hitting curbs and losing rims. I remember driving to the east side and hitting Parmenter St in Middleton before realizing I got on the Beltline and drove in the wrong direction for 5 exits. You think I would have learned from those stories. But no, it took a night in my hometown where I felt relatively okay to drive--but apparently didn't come to a complete stop at the stop sign (so says the officer) and then pulled in to the far lane when I turned left (that one is true, but I do it sober and never get pulled over for it). But it was 2am in a small town and I got fucking cuffed and stuffed...all because I wanted to go home and made my sister pull over because she was really really too drunk to drive...
The night before Thanksgiving 2011 I spent sitting at the cop shop crying for my life. My life as I knew it was over. And that's not being dramatic. This is on my record for 50 years. I am technically a felon in Canada so I can never cross the border and get cheap prescriptions. My car insurance is jacked WAY up now. I have an SR-22 stuck on there which costs an additional $25 per policy period besides just jacking up the rates. Not to mention the $734 ticket, $225 for the counselor, the $250 for the drunk driving class, the $50 for an occupational license...
Sure I got an occupational license right away. I picked the hours for the bartending shifts I was working at the time. Then I got a new job. I didn't want to pay the $50 to change the hours on my license. Cops never ever sit on Hwy H--at least I hadn't seen one in years. Well, one month before I was due to get my real license back...there sat a county sheriff. I wasn't speeding. Thought I was in the clear...mother fucker ran my plates. I was two hours out of my allowed hours, not to mention less than a mile from work. Boom. Driving After Revocation ticket. Another $225. And 3 points. I had just cleared my license with my DD class...to get them back. All because I didn't want to pay $50...
There are many more lessons I've learned...like don't fall for a guy who's still in love with his ex. Don't fall for a guy who's still in love with his ex who you happen to live with. Don't fall for a guy who recently broke up with his ex. Don't fall for a guy who will never settle down. Don't fall for a guy who's in to skinny girls. And now I'm afraid I won't fall for another guy ever again. All because I fell for the wrong guy...
Or how about, don't move in with a girl who is always in a relationship. Don't move in with a girl who needs a man to validate her life. Don't move in with a girl who is a serial dater. Don't move in with a girl who needs a man in her life at the expense of everyone around her. Don't move in with a girl who might in any way have a man over in any fashion. Why didn't I just find a nice gay guy???
Then there's today's lesson. Don't sign a bunch of papers if you don't know what you're signing. Pretty stupid huh? Pretty fucking retarded to sign a bunch of papers and think that perhaps it wasn't a binding contract, right? Who does that? What sane, well-educated individual would sign a bunch of shit before thinking it over first? Does anyone want to get their fingers out? Because both my thumbs are facing me right now so you might as well join in. This fucking stupid emotional retarded idiot. That's who.
I'm 31 years old. I shouldn't need to have roommates anymore. I should be finally stable. Except that I've job jumped for so many years that I've always just been "entry level." As it turns out, starting at the bottom is pretty typical. And I've never been good with numbers. Or legally binding paperwork apparently. But seriously...I've had enough horrible experiences with roommates and realized that alone is the only way to live--unless you're fucking the person you live with--which, believe me...my list of roommates has never dipped in to fuckable territory. They are always friends. Friends who have men in their lives. Now I'm not some man-hating spinster who doesn't want my friends to be happy...but I also hate being the third wheel. Loathe it! So when I'm in my apartment--that I pay rent for--and I'm told to leave, or stay in my room...well the 31 year old adult in me wants to say Fuck Off I live here too! This is also my apartment. Find your own place if you want to be alone.
There have been many...sigh, many many...men in my life since the last one I called boyfriend. But They never lasted longer than a night at a time. So I don't believe I have ever, in my life, cramped a roommate's style with a man. I have never told anyone to leave, or stay in their room. I have never taken over the living room or kitchen or bathroom. My men don't bogart the tv. They don't mooch the internet. They don't move in and not pay rent. They come in, they fuck me, they leave. As how men should be. Not seen. And not heard if you can possible keep it down--which sometimes I can't. But overhearing some sex noises sure beats not being able to go to the kitchen to get a drink because you're worried some dude is violating your friend on the couch you sit on sometimes...
Suffice it to say...I feel suffocated with a roommate. But my current situation has been much better than my past situations have been. That's for sure. But on top of lack of privacy...there's the commute. I have to drive the Beltline twice a day which, in and of itself, is hell. My drive home is 18 miles and can take one hour...especially in adverse weather. I can lose almost 2 hours a day driving from the west side of town to the east side. Having a new car only means I feel safer driving. But now I have new worries...like did that fucking truck just kick up another goddamn pebble? So help me god if it cracks my windshield!!!
So I was feeling really vulnerable when I went in to the leasing office that day. That fateful day in July. I had woken up with ear plugs in to avoid overhearing sex noises that I weren't coming from my room. I had almost gotten in two accidents with assholes who don't know what a blinker/turn signal is. Plus a rock had really seriously hit my windshield and I thought it was a goner. I'm a very emotional and dramatic person--ahem--OBVIOUSLY. I know this. I know I don't make rational decisions because of it. I fucking moved to Reedsburg for a year because of it. I lost friends when I moved who don't talk to me anymore because of it. So when I walked in to the leasing office and went on a tour of a building that promised a pool, a fitness center, underground parking, a storage unit, washer/dryer in unit, a/c, dishwasher...MY OWN SPACE...well I couldn't see past the stars in my eyes.
My brain was spinning with possibilities. Look at this place! it yelled. Look at what could be ALL YOURS! You can bring men in and out to your heart's delight. You can throw pool parties. You can stop spending money on a gym. You don't have to waste money on cable that you never watch. You don't have to spend $100/month to air condition a giant fucking space. You don't have to drive 30-50 minutes one way to get to work! You can sleep in later. Stay up later. Walk around naked from the second you walk in the door until the second you leave. You can have the place clean to your OCD standards. The litter box will always be clean. The sink will only have your dishes. The shoes in the closet are all yours. If you want to blast music at 5am when you're getting ready--you can! If you want to take a mid afternoon nap in the living room...fucking do it. No one will walk in and wake you up. If you want to watch sappy romantic movies all day, in your underwear, whilst taking interval naps to regenerate...go right ahead--no one will rain on your parade! It's your space!
Or, it will be as soon as you sign here...here...here...initial here...sign here. Do you have pets? Yes a cat. Well here's a $400 pet adendum we don't advertise on our website so we can sneak it in after you confess to having a cat.
All I was thinking that day is...I will find the money! I will stop eating out. I will budget. I will start spending wisely. No more shit I don't need. No more needless trips to Target. It will be fine! I can afford it. She saw the stars in my eyes. So she pulled out paperwork for days while she went over my application to see if I was "pre-approved." My credit was pre-approved, even though I have an outstanding $600 Altell bill from when I was a co-signer on a cell phone that wasn't mine to pay. All they needed to do was check my references and verify my income. They'd mail me the lease in about a week she said. Once everything was approved.
And I went back to work totally flabbergasted. Did I just sign a lease? I think I just signed a lease. And I told my mom, my roommate, and my friend. All three of them asked me if I was crazy. How could I afford it? they asked. I'd make it work, I said. It's worth it. But my stomach sank to my feet and never recovered. It's still there now actually. Person after person just nailed me with the questions, how are you going to cut $243 out of your spending? What kind of quality of life are you going to be living if you work all the time? As it turns out I'd need a third job. My second job of catering serving is real busy during the summer months with weddings--but what happens in the winter? Not a whole lot...
I went home and pulled out my bill budget. I typed in my new rent. I saw the number left over after all my bills are paid. $200. If I'm lucky. That's all I'd have left at the end of the month after paying my bills. For everyone else. Gas. Food. Clothes. Toiletries. Household items. An emergency of ANY kind? Not to mention living. Going out. Having fun. Seeing movies. Going to concerts. Catching a coffee. Having a meal with a stranger. No...that would all end. I freaked. I cried. I shook down to my bones. I didn't sleep. I wasn't sure if what I signed was binding. She said they had to approve my app and then they'd send a lease to me in the mail. I had one sliver of hope.
Until I went in the next day. I called them and left a message. "Hi, I was just in there yesterday and signed a bunch of papers. I'm not sure if what I signed was final, but I crunched some numbers and I'm just not going to be able to afford it. Please call me back and let me know asap." And they didn't open until 9:30am. That was excruciating. Is it too late? Is my life over...again? And finally they called me. Yes, what you signed was a lease. I'm sorry if you didn't realize that, but we approved it already and it went in the mail last night. If you don't want to move in you will have to find a subletter.
Defeated. Utterly defeated, I hung up the phone. The color drained from my face. I had to hold back tears. I felt like passing out. "They're gonna make me sublet" I squeaked out. I went to a leasing office on a fucking emotional bipolar-like high...and I signed a bunch of shit before asking what I was doing. And now a $759/month weight was resting on my shoulders. I was there for 30 minutes and I signed my life away. I was so overly ready to live alone that I didn't think clearly. I never once said, okay, stop, think about this. This is a lease and you are going to have to find $250/month that you don't have...or you're evicted. Forever. You aren't evicted once...you're evicted forever. It's on your credit history, your rental history...you entire fucking life is ruined.
The worse part was I had mentioned that my roommate had a friend who was looking to move soon and might take over my lease early. My lease is up Oct. 31st. So the leasing agent Lindsey is her name...aka...de devil....says, well lets just put down Oct 1st as your move in date and we can change the top page if we have to. Just like that, just change the top page. No big deal. Because I didn't think I was signing a binding lease that would never be changed.
I put up an ad on craigslist. And on 5 other sites. One I actually paid for. And I made flyers and hung them up at grocery stores on both sides of town. And I waited. I waited for calls. I got a bite right away. We emailed for a couple days. My spirits were lifted. Could I be this lucky to find someone the first day I put up the ad? HAHAHA. Said the Universe. Fuck no. She bailed. Said she needed another month to get her credit in order. So I waited. More people emailed. I explained they had to call the leasing office to set up a showing. Never heard from them again. One guy did email me back saying it was on his list and he'd let me know.
Then two weeks in I get a call. I talked for 30 minutes to a guy I'm pretty sure is schizophrenic. But I'm desperate. He even asked me out. Said I sounded nice. Didn't know if I had a boyfriend but he wanted to take me out to dinner. Tell me more about how his landlord wants him out and the other tenants are afraid of him because he's "not caucasian." He put in an ap, but told me a few days later they wanted "idiot references." Not holding my breath there.
Then this guy calls me. He's going through a divorce. The studio would be perfect. He'll take it. He put in an ap. A couple days later--yes I said days...apparently I'm the only person in all of Madison who gets approved within hours--he calls me to tell me he's approved! He's so excited to take this place and take it off my hands. Can't wait to help us both out. Going to sign the lease at 4pm. And I don't hear back. I started mentally buying things with the $300 deposit I already paid (yes I paid a fucking deposit and still thought I could get out of it because I'm an idiot). So I email him the next day. Not going to get excited until I hear "I signed!" And he emails me back. "I wanted to call...I was stuck in Milwaukee...talking to the lawyers...still have to pay my mortgage...can't afford both...I'm so sorry..."
So I'm discouraged, but not lost. I emailed the office and said, hey...I need to change the date back to Nov. 1st like originally planned. I need another month to search since a month had just passed with no one taking the place. I also said I'd be giving up my cat so that I didn't have to pay the $400 pet deposit. I don't want to give up my only love Wilson...but I can't afford that right now.
And then on Friday...right before I was about to leave to have the weekend of the summer...I get an email from the office. "We won't charge you the pet fee if you don't bring a pet." You're damn right you won't! But "we can push the move in date up...but we can't push it back." Are you FUCKING kidding me? Lindsey/aka de devil/aka fucking airhead told me that I could change the date!!! My whole weekend was ruined. I made it through with a smile because I got real drunk all weekend.
Today I mustered the strength to go in to the office and plead mercy. I couldn't breathe. I was shaking. I was angry. I was depressed. The whole morning at work I was fighting back tears. I couldn't talk to anyone because I was afraid I'd start sobbing about how my life was over. My current lease runs through November. If I don't find a subletter, then I'm in for TWO rents for October. I can't even afford one. I can't afford life. FUCK.
She took one look at me and said "Well it's a learning experience." EXCUSE ME? You're chalking this life ruining disaster up to a learning experience??? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm crying and telling you my life is going to be over if I have to move in to your apartments and how upset I am that Lindsey told me we could change the date and you're saying "you can't." You CAN actually. As the property manager you can pick up my lease and tear it up and say I'm more trouble than I'm worth. But instead you watch me take my glasses off, (I wore those for an effect that was lost on her heartless soul--stupid non-stereotype that people are nicer to people with glasses), wipe my eyes, and beg.
She tells me they can't move it back to November because then they are out that money. I said well you'll be out a lot more money than that if you have to evict me. I said get it started now because I won't pay for rent for a month when I'm still paying rent at my other place. If she had said "learning experience" once more, I might've just grabbed match and some gas and burned the place down. I was seriously that on edge. Now I know I never would've signed an Oct 1st lease knowing Nov 1st was the date I needed. She said, well, I'm sorry you signed the lease for that date and it's a binding contract. Again, another term I never want to hear out of her mouth again. The leasing agent lied to me. She said there were 4 appointments to see this apartment. There were none. She said we could change the date. They won't change the date. She told me it'd take a week to approve my app. It took two hours apparently. And now she doesn't even fucking work there anymore. She was there long enough to ruin my life and leave like the shixa devil that she is.
So you know what? As soon as this is said and done, I'm realising the online beast in me and blasting EVERY website I can find for Madison rentals. I'm dropping the first and last name of everyone I worked with. As soon as this bitch is either mine to be evicted from or as soon as someone who can actually afford it moves in. And I would hope that you...my readers...will share this information. I may be the stupid one who signed a lease she can't afford--but it was under shady circumstances. They had the chance to make it right by at least pushing the move in date back a month and they are choosing not to. Even after I showed proof of the original emails where I asked for a Nov 1st date. She basically said, tough fucking luck. We go you in and we're going to milk every penny out of your pocket because we're greedy fucking bastards who treat you like another montly rent and not a person.
I HATE leasing companies! I HATE HATE HATE how heartless they are. What kind of fucking world is this? What did I ever do to you Universe? I must have really really messed up in a past life because the Universe seems hell bent on punishing me over and over and over. I make the worst decisions ever and get punished. I can't just learn a lesson in a book...I have to live it. I have to loathe it. I have to get knocked on my ass over and over and over again.
I'm not this strong. People keep saying "it will work out." Really? You paying my rent? Didn't think so. For a month it hasn't just "worked out" now has it? Another month will go by just as fast...and I may find myself at October 1st sitting on a street corner with a cardboard fucking sign begging for a month's rent or a subletter.
Sure, I'm a big dumb whiny bitch right now. People are dying of cancer. People are being tortured. People are in much worse situations than me...but you know what? This is MY life. And I can appreciate when great things happen to me. But it seems like right now...the Universe is hell bent on teaching me a lesson. I know it could be worse...and in fact, I'll probably see it get worse before I ever see it get better. All because I walked in to a leasing office one afternoon on my lunch break and thought with my heart and not my head...
Right now my fingers are crossed six times that the woman looking at the place sits down and signs a lease. I bet they'll take three days to approve her app. Doubt they'll throw it at her and have her sign before she's approved. No, no...that's the Universe's cruel way of teaching me not to sign papers...period.
Well, you know what Univers? I fucking learned my lesson already. You gotta give. Something's gotta give...
To be honest, life can really be hell. It can also be pretty heavenly. And who am I to tell someone they're going one place or the other based on my interpretation of some dusty old school graphic novel that's not even cool enough to have any art to go along with it's smiteful tales of people getting eaten by whales or fighting giants? I don't want that kind of responsibility. I misinterpret shit all the time...I'm wrong a lot when it comes to big life lessons. In fact...I choose the wrong choice all the fucking time. A lesson, in my world, isn't learned until it's really ruined my life. I mean--I don't just hear something and think--oh, maybe I shouldn't do that...no I need to REALLY learn a fucking lesson. I mean, really, really.
Some people, well, they can learn from tales in a book. People can read about a sinner that gets stoned to death and maybe they don't steal that bread. They can read that pre-marital sex will send you straight to hell and they abstain from the sweet sweet delights of the horizontal mambo until some man in a robe weds them officially. Others can spend an hour in front of the television after school watching a special about how drugs ruin lives and fall for those scrambled egg commercials and stay far far away from the joy juice. Well I don't need God to tell me I've fucked up. I don't need a god to tell me I'm going to hell. I don't need anyone else fucking judging me. But for some reason the Universe sure likes to play games with me...
For some people...watching others fail is good enough for them to learn. They see the possible outcomes and they avoid the horrible endings. They listen when people tell them that the stove is hot. Their fingers go unburned. Their vaginas go unviolated by large dicks because they've made a vow to only have sex with God until they're married--or something like that...
Not this girl. Nope. I have to learn everything the hard way. I have to fall face first in to a pile of life lesson shit. I have to really get in there and floss with the leftover corn kernels before I get it. I didn't start out that way. I didn't drink. Didn't do drugs. Definitely didn't have sex. Then one day I saw someone enjoying a beer--and I didn't want to be left out. I saw someone smoke a bowl and I didn't want to be left out. I didn't see anyone having sex, per say, but I heard how fucking awesome it was and I didn't want to be left out. I waited to lose my virginity until I was "in love." I waited 20 mutha-fuckin years to pop that cherry. And you know what that got me? A verbal, bordering on abusive, 5 year relationship that majorly fucked with my head and pretty much ruined any other guy's chance at warming my cold cold heart...all for a pretty face I thought I loved...
I drank, a lot. Still do on occasion. And I drove. Had to get home. Everyone else was driving home. I didn't want to pay for cabs. Sometimes I woke up in my bed not knowing how I got there and saw my car in the lot. No one was with me. I drove my damn self and had no memory. I drove other people home and don't remember. Sometimes, what's worse, is I did remember driving. I remember driving down the wrong side of the street. I remembered hitting curbs and losing rims. I remember driving to the east side and hitting Parmenter St in Middleton before realizing I got on the Beltline and drove in the wrong direction for 5 exits. You think I would have learned from those stories. But no, it took a night in my hometown where I felt relatively okay to drive--but apparently didn't come to a complete stop at the stop sign (so says the officer) and then pulled in to the far lane when I turned left (that one is true, but I do it sober and never get pulled over for it). But it was 2am in a small town and I got fucking cuffed and stuffed...all because I wanted to go home and made my sister pull over because she was really really too drunk to drive...
The night before Thanksgiving 2011 I spent sitting at the cop shop crying for my life. My life as I knew it was over. And that's not being dramatic. This is on my record for 50 years. I am technically a felon in Canada so I can never cross the border and get cheap prescriptions. My car insurance is jacked WAY up now. I have an SR-22 stuck on there which costs an additional $25 per policy period besides just jacking up the rates. Not to mention the $734 ticket, $225 for the counselor, the $250 for the drunk driving class, the $50 for an occupational license...
Sure I got an occupational license right away. I picked the hours for the bartending shifts I was working at the time. Then I got a new job. I didn't want to pay the $50 to change the hours on my license. Cops never ever sit on Hwy H--at least I hadn't seen one in years. Well, one month before I was due to get my real license back...there sat a county sheriff. I wasn't speeding. Thought I was in the clear...mother fucker ran my plates. I was two hours out of my allowed hours, not to mention less than a mile from work. Boom. Driving After Revocation ticket. Another $225. And 3 points. I had just cleared my license with my DD class...to get them back. All because I didn't want to pay $50...
There are many more lessons I've learned...like don't fall for a guy who's still in love with his ex. Don't fall for a guy who's still in love with his ex who you happen to live with. Don't fall for a guy who recently broke up with his ex. Don't fall for a guy who will never settle down. Don't fall for a guy who's in to skinny girls. And now I'm afraid I won't fall for another guy ever again. All because I fell for the wrong guy...
Or how about, don't move in with a girl who is always in a relationship. Don't move in with a girl who needs a man to validate her life. Don't move in with a girl who is a serial dater. Don't move in with a girl who needs a man in her life at the expense of everyone around her. Don't move in with a girl who might in any way have a man over in any fashion. Why didn't I just find a nice gay guy???
Then there's today's lesson. Don't sign a bunch of papers if you don't know what you're signing. Pretty stupid huh? Pretty fucking retarded to sign a bunch of papers and think that perhaps it wasn't a binding contract, right? Who does that? What sane, well-educated individual would sign a bunch of shit before thinking it over first? Does anyone want to get their fingers out? Because both my thumbs are facing me right now so you might as well join in. This fucking stupid emotional retarded idiot. That's who.
I'm 31 years old. I shouldn't need to have roommates anymore. I should be finally stable. Except that I've job jumped for so many years that I've always just been "entry level." As it turns out, starting at the bottom is pretty typical. And I've never been good with numbers. Or legally binding paperwork apparently. But seriously...I've had enough horrible experiences with roommates and realized that alone is the only way to live--unless you're fucking the person you live with--which, believe me...my list of roommates has never dipped in to fuckable territory. They are always friends. Friends who have men in their lives. Now I'm not some man-hating spinster who doesn't want my friends to be happy...but I also hate being the third wheel. Loathe it! So when I'm in my apartment--that I pay rent for--and I'm told to leave, or stay in my room...well the 31 year old adult in me wants to say Fuck Off I live here too! This is also my apartment. Find your own place if you want to be alone.
There have been many...sigh, many many...men in my life since the last one I called boyfriend. But They never lasted longer than a night at a time. So I don't believe I have ever, in my life, cramped a roommate's style with a man. I have never told anyone to leave, or stay in their room. I have never taken over the living room or kitchen or bathroom. My men don't bogart the tv. They don't mooch the internet. They don't move in and not pay rent. They come in, they fuck me, they leave. As how men should be. Not seen. And not heard if you can possible keep it down--which sometimes I can't. But overhearing some sex noises sure beats not being able to go to the kitchen to get a drink because you're worried some dude is violating your friend on the couch you sit on sometimes...
Suffice it to say...I feel suffocated with a roommate. But my current situation has been much better than my past situations have been. That's for sure. But on top of lack of privacy...there's the commute. I have to drive the Beltline twice a day which, in and of itself, is hell. My drive home is 18 miles and can take one hour...especially in adverse weather. I can lose almost 2 hours a day driving from the west side of town to the east side. Having a new car only means I feel safer driving. But now I have new worries...like did that fucking truck just kick up another goddamn pebble? So help me god if it cracks my windshield!!!
So I was feeling really vulnerable when I went in to the leasing office that day. That fateful day in July. I had woken up with ear plugs in to avoid overhearing sex noises that I weren't coming from my room. I had almost gotten in two accidents with assholes who don't know what a blinker/turn signal is. Plus a rock had really seriously hit my windshield and I thought it was a goner. I'm a very emotional and dramatic person--ahem--OBVIOUSLY. I know this. I know I don't make rational decisions because of it. I fucking moved to Reedsburg for a year because of it. I lost friends when I moved who don't talk to me anymore because of it. So when I walked in to the leasing office and went on a tour of a building that promised a pool, a fitness center, underground parking, a storage unit, washer/dryer in unit, a/c, dishwasher...MY OWN SPACE...well I couldn't see past the stars in my eyes.
My brain was spinning with possibilities. Look at this place! it yelled. Look at what could be ALL YOURS! You can bring men in and out to your heart's delight. You can throw pool parties. You can stop spending money on a gym. You don't have to waste money on cable that you never watch. You don't have to spend $100/month to air condition a giant fucking space. You don't have to drive 30-50 minutes one way to get to work! You can sleep in later. Stay up later. Walk around naked from the second you walk in the door until the second you leave. You can have the place clean to your OCD standards. The litter box will always be clean. The sink will only have your dishes. The shoes in the closet are all yours. If you want to blast music at 5am when you're getting ready--you can! If you want to take a mid afternoon nap in the living room...fucking do it. No one will walk in and wake you up. If you want to watch sappy romantic movies all day, in your underwear, whilst taking interval naps to regenerate...go right ahead--no one will rain on your parade! It's your space!
Or, it will be as soon as you sign here...here...here...initial here...sign here. Do you have pets? Yes a cat. Well here's a $400 pet adendum we don't advertise on our website so we can sneak it in after you confess to having a cat.
All I was thinking that day is...I will find the money! I will stop eating out. I will budget. I will start spending wisely. No more shit I don't need. No more needless trips to Target. It will be fine! I can afford it. She saw the stars in my eyes. So she pulled out paperwork for days while she went over my application to see if I was "pre-approved." My credit was pre-approved, even though I have an outstanding $600 Altell bill from when I was a co-signer on a cell phone that wasn't mine to pay. All they needed to do was check my references and verify my income. They'd mail me the lease in about a week she said. Once everything was approved.
And I went back to work totally flabbergasted. Did I just sign a lease? I think I just signed a lease. And I told my mom, my roommate, and my friend. All three of them asked me if I was crazy. How could I afford it? they asked. I'd make it work, I said. It's worth it. But my stomach sank to my feet and never recovered. It's still there now actually. Person after person just nailed me with the questions, how are you going to cut $243 out of your spending? What kind of quality of life are you going to be living if you work all the time? As it turns out I'd need a third job. My second job of catering serving is real busy during the summer months with weddings--but what happens in the winter? Not a whole lot...
I went home and pulled out my bill budget. I typed in my new rent. I saw the number left over after all my bills are paid. $200. If I'm lucky. That's all I'd have left at the end of the month after paying my bills. For everyone else. Gas. Food. Clothes. Toiletries. Household items. An emergency of ANY kind? Not to mention living. Going out. Having fun. Seeing movies. Going to concerts. Catching a coffee. Having a meal with a stranger. No...that would all end. I freaked. I cried. I shook down to my bones. I didn't sleep. I wasn't sure if what I signed was binding. She said they had to approve my app and then they'd send a lease to me in the mail. I had one sliver of hope.
Until I went in the next day. I called them and left a message. "Hi, I was just in there yesterday and signed a bunch of papers. I'm not sure if what I signed was final, but I crunched some numbers and I'm just not going to be able to afford it. Please call me back and let me know asap." And they didn't open until 9:30am. That was excruciating. Is it too late? Is my life over...again? And finally they called me. Yes, what you signed was a lease. I'm sorry if you didn't realize that, but we approved it already and it went in the mail last night. If you don't want to move in you will have to find a subletter.
Defeated. Utterly defeated, I hung up the phone. The color drained from my face. I had to hold back tears. I felt like passing out. "They're gonna make me sublet" I squeaked out. I went to a leasing office on a fucking emotional bipolar-like high...and I signed a bunch of shit before asking what I was doing. And now a $759/month weight was resting on my shoulders. I was there for 30 minutes and I signed my life away. I was so overly ready to live alone that I didn't think clearly. I never once said, okay, stop, think about this. This is a lease and you are going to have to find $250/month that you don't have...or you're evicted. Forever. You aren't evicted once...you're evicted forever. It's on your credit history, your rental history...you entire fucking life is ruined.
The worse part was I had mentioned that my roommate had a friend who was looking to move soon and might take over my lease early. My lease is up Oct. 31st. So the leasing agent Lindsey is her name...aka...de devil....says, well lets just put down Oct 1st as your move in date and we can change the top page if we have to. Just like that, just change the top page. No big deal. Because I didn't think I was signing a binding lease that would never be changed.
I put up an ad on craigslist. And on 5 other sites. One I actually paid for. And I made flyers and hung them up at grocery stores on both sides of town. And I waited. I waited for calls. I got a bite right away. We emailed for a couple days. My spirits were lifted. Could I be this lucky to find someone the first day I put up the ad? HAHAHA. Said the Universe. Fuck no. She bailed. Said she needed another month to get her credit in order. So I waited. More people emailed. I explained they had to call the leasing office to set up a showing. Never heard from them again. One guy did email me back saying it was on his list and he'd let me know.
Then two weeks in I get a call. I talked for 30 minutes to a guy I'm pretty sure is schizophrenic. But I'm desperate. He even asked me out. Said I sounded nice. Didn't know if I had a boyfriend but he wanted to take me out to dinner. Tell me more about how his landlord wants him out and the other tenants are afraid of him because he's "not caucasian." He put in an ap, but told me a few days later they wanted "idiot references." Not holding my breath there.
Then this guy calls me. He's going through a divorce. The studio would be perfect. He'll take it. He put in an ap. A couple days later--yes I said days...apparently I'm the only person in all of Madison who gets approved within hours--he calls me to tell me he's approved! He's so excited to take this place and take it off my hands. Can't wait to help us both out. Going to sign the lease at 4pm. And I don't hear back. I started mentally buying things with the $300 deposit I already paid (yes I paid a fucking deposit and still thought I could get out of it because I'm an idiot). So I email him the next day. Not going to get excited until I hear "I signed!" And he emails me back. "I wanted to call...I was stuck in Milwaukee...talking to the lawyers...still have to pay my mortgage...can't afford both...I'm so sorry..."
So I'm discouraged, but not lost. I emailed the office and said, hey...I need to change the date back to Nov. 1st like originally planned. I need another month to search since a month had just passed with no one taking the place. I also said I'd be giving up my cat so that I didn't have to pay the $400 pet deposit. I don't want to give up my only love Wilson...but I can't afford that right now.
And then on Friday...right before I was about to leave to have the weekend of the summer...I get an email from the office. "We won't charge you the pet fee if you don't bring a pet." You're damn right you won't! But "we can push the move in date up...but we can't push it back." Are you FUCKING kidding me? Lindsey/aka de devil/aka fucking airhead told me that I could change the date!!! My whole weekend was ruined. I made it through with a smile because I got real drunk all weekend.
Today I mustered the strength to go in to the office and plead mercy. I couldn't breathe. I was shaking. I was angry. I was depressed. The whole morning at work I was fighting back tears. I couldn't talk to anyone because I was afraid I'd start sobbing about how my life was over. My current lease runs through November. If I don't find a subletter, then I'm in for TWO rents for October. I can't even afford one. I can't afford life. FUCK.
She took one look at me and said "Well it's a learning experience." EXCUSE ME? You're chalking this life ruining disaster up to a learning experience??? Are you fucking kidding me? I'm crying and telling you my life is going to be over if I have to move in to your apartments and how upset I am that Lindsey told me we could change the date and you're saying "you can't." You CAN actually. As the property manager you can pick up my lease and tear it up and say I'm more trouble than I'm worth. But instead you watch me take my glasses off, (I wore those for an effect that was lost on her heartless soul--stupid non-stereotype that people are nicer to people with glasses), wipe my eyes, and beg.
She tells me they can't move it back to November because then they are out that money. I said well you'll be out a lot more money than that if you have to evict me. I said get it started now because I won't pay for rent for a month when I'm still paying rent at my other place. If she had said "learning experience" once more, I might've just grabbed match and some gas and burned the place down. I was seriously that on edge. Now I know I never would've signed an Oct 1st lease knowing Nov 1st was the date I needed. She said, well, I'm sorry you signed the lease for that date and it's a binding contract. Again, another term I never want to hear out of her mouth again. The leasing agent lied to me. She said there were 4 appointments to see this apartment. There were none. She said we could change the date. They won't change the date. She told me it'd take a week to approve my app. It took two hours apparently. And now she doesn't even fucking work there anymore. She was there long enough to ruin my life and leave like the shixa devil that she is.
So you know what? As soon as this is said and done, I'm realising the online beast in me and blasting EVERY website I can find for Madison rentals. I'm dropping the first and last name of everyone I worked with. As soon as this bitch is either mine to be evicted from or as soon as someone who can actually afford it moves in. And I would hope that you...my readers...will share this information. I may be the stupid one who signed a lease she can't afford--but it was under shady circumstances. They had the chance to make it right by at least pushing the move in date back a month and they are choosing not to. Even after I showed proof of the original emails where I asked for a Nov 1st date. She basically said, tough fucking luck. We go you in and we're going to milk every penny out of your pocket because we're greedy fucking bastards who treat you like another montly rent and not a person.
I HATE leasing companies! I HATE HATE HATE how heartless they are. What kind of fucking world is this? What did I ever do to you Universe? I must have really really messed up in a past life because the Universe seems hell bent on punishing me over and over and over. I make the worst decisions ever and get punished. I can't just learn a lesson in a book...I have to live it. I have to loathe it. I have to get knocked on my ass over and over and over again.
I'm not this strong. People keep saying "it will work out." Really? You paying my rent? Didn't think so. For a month it hasn't just "worked out" now has it? Another month will go by just as fast...and I may find myself at October 1st sitting on a street corner with a cardboard fucking sign begging for a month's rent or a subletter.
Sure, I'm a big dumb whiny bitch right now. People are dying of cancer. People are being tortured. People are in much worse situations than me...but you know what? This is MY life. And I can appreciate when great things happen to me. But it seems like right now...the Universe is hell bent on teaching me a lesson. I know it could be worse...and in fact, I'll probably see it get worse before I ever see it get better. All because I walked in to a leasing office one afternoon on my lunch break and thought with my heart and not my head...
Right now my fingers are crossed six times that the woman looking at the place sits down and signs a lease. I bet they'll take three days to approve her app. Doubt they'll throw it at her and have her sign before she's approved. No, no...that's the Universe's cruel way of teaching me not to sign papers...period.
Well, you know what Univers? I fucking learned my lesson already. You gotta give. Something's gotta give...
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