Fly by the Seat of Your Pants

So, a few months ago, I posted my spare bedroom on AirBnB.com to drum up a little extra revenue.  Nothing happened for a long time...until last Monday.  What happened last Monday?  I'll tell you...

Last Monday I got a request on AirBnB.com from a mother of a 20-year old girl for a 5-night stay for her daughter.  It seemed legit.  The mother was a "verified" user on the site and the whole thing seemed pretty normal.  On Monday evening, my renter knocked on my door.  I opened it up to find three young strung-out individuals - two girls and a guy.  The girl with the purple hair, two lip rings, and the booty shorts was my renter.  The other two were her brother and pregnant sister-in-law.  Well, pregnant sister-in-law wearing a skin-tight leopard-print dress.  I tried to keep an open mind, I really did.  I really really tried.

After the riffraff got the young girl moved into her new temporary room, they took off and it was just the two of us.  I cannot even explain what was going through my mind at that point.  I was trying to put pieces together in my head and justify the whole situation to myself to make it seem more normal, but that wasn't working very well.  So, I asked my new roomie what her deal was.  "So, what's your story?"  "Are you here on a school trip?"  HA!  Boy, was I wrong.

My new roomie filled me in on her "sitch".  She came to Spokane to figure out how to live on her own.  She'd never lived on her own before, she had family here, and she decided it would be a good idea to come up from Hobbes, New Mexico, to start living her life as an independent adult.  However, on her Greyhound ride up, someone stole her wallet and the $1500.00 of cash in it.  She made it to Spokane, but had to ask her mom for help with paying for a place to stay while she got her shit figured out.  And that, my folks, is how she wound up in my apartment for five nights.

Day 1 was interesting.  Minus the Alaskan littles and their mom, I've never had any roommates in my apartments here.  So, going to bed that night was TOUGH.  I locked my bedroom door to feel a little more safe but 10 minutes after doing so, my cat started to desperately scratch at the door trying to get out.  Who knows why he wanted out so bad - he usually just sleeps ALL THE TIME.  Needless to say, I had to sleep with my bedroom door open that night.  Actually, I didn't really sleep, I just kind of observed what was going on in the room across the hall with one eye open.  I have no idea why the chick kept her light on all night long.  But, when I finally got up in the morning, her door was shut and all was quiet.

Day 2 was normal.  I didn't come home until later in the evening and she was busy in the guest bedroom across the hall from my bedroom.  Well technically, she did send me a text earlier that evening asking me if she could eat some of my Cheerios.  I didn't really want her to eat them, but who is really going to say "No, you can't eat my Cheerios!" via text?  Not me.

Day 3 is when shit went down.  I came home from school to find her in the guest bedroom, in a skimpy dress and hooker heels, doing something on her phone.  Oh, did I mention that one of the very first things she asked when she walked in my door the first night was "what's your wifi?"?  So, I stood outside of her door, and started a conversation with her.  "How was your day?"  "How are things going?"  Oh my, did that open a can of worms.  She began to tell me how she had learned that day what a 'Daddy Don' was.  "Um, WTF is that?" you're saying?  Oh, let me tell you.  She explained to me that this Daddy fellow is one who lets people live with him while he takes care of them and helps them get on their feet.  She also explained that this Daddy person receives sexual favors from these female-only guests.  I immediately responded with "Oh!  You mean a pimp??"  "Oh, yeah, I guess he is a pimp." she responded.  She then went on to explain to me that she had posted an ad on Craigslist informing the general predatory pubic about her situation.  Her situation was that she had no job, she had no home, she had no money, and she was looking for a place to "chill" for a while until she could find a job.  She was essentially looking for a place that would let her be a rent-free roommate with the promise that she would pay rent if, and when, she ever got a job.  I had to end the conversation because I had to start dinner.  That, and because my brain was trying to jump off a cliff inside my skull.  OH!  She also told me that if she wasn't able to find a place by the time she had to check out on Saturday, she was going to have to stay with her brother and sister-in-law at a house they were squatting in.  Squatting I say!  This house apparently didn't have any running water.  Oh, but it had electricity!!  For now.

So, later that night, after dinner and while I was studying at my dining table, I overheard her having a telephone conversation with someone.  Being the creep I am, I eavesdropped - of course!  Something something "oh you're in a rock band?" and "yeah I guess I could probably sing backup in exchange for rent" and "oh, yeah, I can understand why you want female roommates only - I only want male roommates" and finally "the address where I'm staying is blah blah blah, it would be awesome to hang out and see if we get along."

WOAH, woah, woah!  Did she just give someone my address?  Someone that was going to come pick her up at 10:00 pm at night??  Ok, I couldn't not get involved.  I called to her to come chat with me in the living room.  The abridged version of the story is that she found people on Craigslist looking for free chick roommates to stay in exchange for their vocals in their sweet rock band.  They wanted her to come watch them play and they would even come pick her up!  And she was totally cool with it!  It took me a little while but I finally convinced her not to get into a vehicle with a bunch of male strangers at night.  She did argue that she'd be ok with her "spikey" bracelet and her mace.  OMG, really?   At this point, I brought out the big guns.  The main points of my lecture included terms such as "Craigslist Killer", "sex trafficking", and "I once saw a scary movie where a guy picked up a chick in a bar and when he got her into his car the doors locked automatically and it got really scary so I had to change the channel."  Apparently it worked because she called her sister to come get her to take her to see the band playing.  Did I mention that the venue for this popular rock band was the corner of this street and this street?  Yeah, the "popular rock band" was actually a group of panhandling street musicians.  Awesome.

Day 4 I had to leave Spokane to drive across the state...that's an entirely different story but it's so boring I will spare the genpub the snooze-fest details.  HOWEVER, after trying to persuade her to take my brilliant advice of joining the Air Force, which would enable her to have all her housing and health care paid for, not to mention she would actually have a job and get a paycheck, she hit me with yet another shocker.  SHE'S 16-WEEKS PREGNANT!  What???  OMG.  WTF?  Are you KIDDING?  Jesus!  I had to completely change my approach...but...all I had was the homeless women's shelter.  I even offered to drive her there!  A free ride to free food and possibly free housing??  It was such a hard sell that she turned it down.  At that point, I had to give up and go to school.  I also had to remind myself that she was just a renter and I was not her life advisor and as much as I tried to help her I probably wasn't going to get anywhere with her.

When I was in Seattle a day later I got a text from my neighbor that she had dropped my apartment key off at his place, stating that she had "family issues" come up and she had to go.  I have absolutely no idea what happened.  I just hope I don't hear about her later on Dateline or Dr. Phil.

P.S.  I wrote her a letter with some words of wisdom before I left.  I gave it to her as I was leaving.  Maybe that had something to do with her leaving early......  (I scanned it and will definitely share it someday! - HOLD YOUR BREATH!)

So, So Over It

I'm the type of person that can sometimes tolerate a whole lot of bullshit.  Is that a personality type?  Well, if it wasn't before, it is now.  People, places, things:  you name it, I can probably deal with his/her/its bullshit...for an extended period of time.  Once the BS has piled up too high, though, I'm just over it.  Just.  Totally.  Over it.

So, as you could possibly guess, I'm so, so over it.  My town has ceased to provide me with sufficient activities to keep my interest, its too effing hot to run outdoors these days, the subtlety of my friends' fakeness has worn off, the novelty of Tinder has worn off, I'm bored out of my mind with this town's male population, and all I have to look forward to is the quickly approaching frigidly icy winter.  Did I mention that this winter is going to be frigid AND icy?  If anyone out there hates black ice more than me, oh and falling on their ass in the ice and snow while carrying 20 pounds of books, they've yet to identify themselves.

Yes, I'm having a bit of a pity party here.  BUT, my main point is I'm ready for the next town and the next adventure, and it can't come soon enough.  If it could please include a job, my Alaskan littles and their parents, I would be delighted.  The countdown has officially started.

In other news, I made #28 tonight.  I was delicious.  Oh, AND I found a heads-up penny!  Jesus, am I living on the edge, or what?  Probably more like "or what", huh?

(Recipe can be found here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/dining/18mini.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0  Do you like how I took the photo AFTER I took a bite out of the bread?)

101 Days of Summer

I came across an amazing NYT article while trying to google "how long it takes to get ready by state".  Yeah, that is a pretty ridiculous thing to google.  But, a friend was telling me she read an article about the average time it took people from each state to get ready.  It was something like 58 minutes for New Yorkers and 4.3 minutes for Vermonteers(?).  I wanted to see how long it takes Alaskans to get ready so I furiously started googling.  I got distracted and ultimately gave up when I came across this: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/dining/18mini.html?pagewanted=all

After having a couple of beers, that I'm obligated to drink because they were gifts, I've decided that I'm going to make every single one of the 101 meal ideas in this article during my last year in school.  I'm even going to suck it up and make #58.  It sounds like a character builder, and maybe a good story.  Who knows.  I guess we'll find out soon.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Two weeks ago, I went for a run down an overgrown logging road at dusk while visiting my parents.  Before I headed out, my mom told me that the very last house on the paved part of the road before it turned to gravel used to be owned by their neighbors.  In my head I heard "blah, blah, blah, Bob and Mariann, blah blah blah".  I did, however, hear the part about the new people that live there own a Great Pyrenees, but that also went in one ear and out the other.  Stay with me, because this is relevant to the story.

After a mile of literal huffing and puffing up these horrible hills where my parents live, a huge 4-legged animal jumped out of the brush in my direction.  I had my headphones in and my music turned up and wasn't paying attention to a thing, except the road ahead of me, getting darker and darker under the trees...yikes.  I was expecting a bear or cougar, so of course I yelled out loud when the dog came into focus.  But, I instantly realized it was that dog my mom was talking about.  The Great Pyrenees (yes, you should google that).  At this point I was sufficiently spooked.  Blah, blah, blah, stay with me I'm getting to the good part of the story.

So, after passing this massive dog and hitting the gravel logging road that NO ONE uses anymore, I started having serious cramps.  Like, ok bear with me, menstrual cramps.  I was baffled because I was no where near the date on the calendar when I should start having cramps.  So I just kept running.  The further I went, the worse they got.  Finally I realized, "Ohhh, these are diarrhea cramps!  I've heard of this happening to distance runners before!"  I stopped running and tried to take a few deep breaths to chase them away.  No dice.  Logically, the next step was to look for a nice sheltered place to go take care of this stomach issue.  I had recently gone on a few dates with this survival instructor guy that showed me this fuzzy plant that he said works great for TP in the woods.  Again, no dice.  I couldn't find it anywhere.  "Alright."  I said to myself, "I'm just going to need to find a tree to hide behind and deal with the consequences.  Maybe I can get away with just using my underwear to clean up.  But then how am I going to be ok with carrying them back to mom and dad's house?"

I started walking back down the road the way I came, looking for openings in the brush.  Remember, this is an overgrown, unused logging road.  I could've gone in the middle of the road and not one person would have ever seen me.  I found a place on the left that looked ok, so I started to investigate.  Taking inventory of the area, I noticed a few old beer cans and bottles...and an old extension cord...and some weird white things that could've either been broken venetian blinds OR shards of human rib bones.  I was leaning toward rib bones.  Did I tell you the sun was setting?  It was officially dusk.  Woods + dusk + plastic pieces that looked like human remains.  Obviously I was minutes away from getting snatched by the boogie man, dragged to some deserted shed on the side of the mountain, and slowly cut apart, piece by piece, with a rusty hatchet.  My only defense to this imaginary killer would be to shit my pants and hope I stunk so bad he had to abort his mission and leave me alone.

At that point I just started to run back.  Who cared if my stomach hurt and I was about to poop my pants?  I'd rather soil my pants than be tortured to death by a crazy mountain man.  Good news, I made it back to my parents' house, unscathed, and my MapMyRun app said I ran at a pretty quick pace, too.  Well done, me.  The moral to this story is coming.

As soon as I got home and told this story to my sister, she just looked at me, smirked, shook her head, and said "You should write a blog."  I'm telling myself it's because she thinks that I have an amazingly entertaining life.  However, realistically, she probably said it so I'd go tell my ridiculously exaggerated stories to the random interweb public instead of to her.

That's it!  That is the story of why I decided to start a blog...because my sister told me so.  You're welcome!  Enjoy the ride!