Okay, so here in Vancouver, we’re having a party next year. It’s a little something called the Olympics.
I’m not going to get into my opinion. We’ll leave it as a gigantic thumb down and fart sound.
The opening ceremonies are being held about a 20 minute walk from my apartment. I don’t plan on making that walk, myself. In fact, I plan to get the hell out of dodge during the whole time if I can. And I’ve decided how that’ll be possible.
Even though it is likely to make the bedbug problem in my neighbourhood exponentially worse, there will soon be an influx of travellers coming to see the Games. I support this, because…
Doing a random little search on Craigslist, I turned up an ad for apartment subletting during the Games. An apartment like mine. In my neighbourhood. Not that much nicer, without that much more to offer. There were several apartments up for grabs, actually. And one refresh, an hour later, showed that two of them had been taken.
And they’re going for between $400 and 650 a night. A 550 square footer with new kitchen cabinets? $13K for the month of February.
Seems like the Universe really does want me to stay in this ‘hood.
Fuck Olympic hockey, I’m renting out our suite and we’re going on vacation.
No, don’t worry, I’m not talking about your money, dear sponsors (see the footer? Those people kick all kinds of ass and you can thank them under your breath in a decidely facetious tone of voice whilst you hold back my hair from the violent upchucking that will take place in Chicago).
I’ve made a momentous decision.
We’re staying in this apartment. Barring that I receive no further bug bites, of which I currently have 17 of. Which I’m hoping against all odds are simply from fleas that I pissed off while walking through some grass on Monday evening, and are not, in fact (again) bed bugs. If it’s bed bugs (again), fuck this shit, I’m moving to the suburbs.
Okay, no, I’m not. I grew up in the ‘burbs. You’d have to pay me to move back there. Or visit. And pick me up and drive me home, too. And provide a car seat. Also, get me drunk.
You get the point.
So. We’re staying in this here tiny-ass, horribly overpriced apartment, which I can do little to to make it more livable, even though it has some hard-core potential that could involve the steaminess of wall-knocking-out, dust and debris in my eyes and lungs, all kinds of fumes that offer a contact high a week later, and smelly tradesmen.
We’re staying in this tiny-ass, horribly overpriced apartment because it’s one of the least horrible-overpriced apartments in the neighbourhood. And if I have to be in Vancouver, and not, say, in SoCal, or a lovely little commune with free wifi (thanks to The Ex), I’m sticking to this ‘hood.
It’s got everything we want and need. Our friends and her soon-to-be preschool are here, there’s about eleventy seven grocers, there’s men who are allowed to get married to other men and walk down the street being in love.
And I don’t need a car to get pretty much anywhere that I or we need to go.
So, in my head, I’m planning on crafting an amazingly enticing letter to the company that manages my building, asking them if in return for prior approval and my second born, I can start to make some changes to this place.
If I can paint the bedroom a nice airy green. If I can replace the baseboards that stand an inch out and therefore make nearly everything a toppling hazard with something more appropriate. If I can add crown mouldings to the ceilings.
You know, if I can knock out the six inch wall that separates the small clothing closet from the what-I’m-only-guessing-is-supposed-to-be-a linen one and make it all one semi-gigundo one, with custom-fitted shelving and rods.
If in the bathroom, I can tear out the pink and beige tiling from the tub, the blue tiling from the floor, the black tiling from the bottom inch of wall and the white tiling adjacent the tub. And you know, install a vanity for the sink that should never be used for intercourse because little is holding it to the wall. Also, a new medicine cabinet is needed, which would require ripping out the old one and the two weird pieces of painted-over-multiple-times wood that someone has nailed to the wall to stop the tri-fold mirror from hyper-extending. And to toss out the pink tub and toilet. And of course replace them with something not reeking of eau de country-cottage.
I’d probably want to ask permission to have the kitchen rewired so as to move the fridge to where the stove is, the stove to where a small bit of counter is and the light switch to the four inch wall opposite. And to remove the silver what-I-can-only-assume-is-a grease shield from the wall currently next to the stove. Also, to replace the gigantic white sink with a smaller, double sink. And tear out the yellow/black tiles from the walls and counter. And probably, I’m going to have to ask if it’s okay for me to tear all of their cupboards and drawers out and replace them with more modern ones with doors that actually close and aren’t bare fiber-board. Bigger ones.
I’d want to beg, politely, to widen the ‘hallway’ closet, so that more than two coats can be hung in it at a time.
Yeah, I’ve just spent a lot of hypothetical money on a place that isn’t mine. But do you know what spending all of that money could do? Make them never raise my rent because I’ve inflated their 400 square foot closet apartment’s value so much higher than it was. Make this place completely liveable for me and Isobel for the next decade, easy.
Make it, for the first time in my whole life, seem like my place.
I’m completely comfortable spending money to do that, considering how much more I might pay each month for a different place that has only half of those improvements done. I’m comfortable doing it because it’s with a sense of pride in a place that I’d like to stay in for a long time, not simply paying my own money on someone else’s place.
So. We’re staying in this apartment, and I’m already throwing hypothetical money out of the window.
(which needs resealing and sill-refinishing.)
