Recently, I took a little jaunt from my refrigerator-box sized studio apartment in Manhattan to Charlottesville to celebrate my 21st birthday (an event which certainly did not result in me falling into the coin fountain at Coupes) and move into my new apartment.For every year I have been at the University, I have lived in a different location and finally, for the first time, I have made a move up the housing hierarchy. What housing hierarchy, you may ask? Oh, just stay tuned my friend.
I have spent the last two years living on the alley of obscurity known to its residents as Brandon Ave. People who don't live there simply know it as "the road that Student Health is on," which perhaps accounts for the negative reactions I received upon telling people where I lived. I don't blame them. No one hates Student Health and their "Just make soup and breathe in the steam and you should be better in a couple of days!" (actual quote) approach like I do.
My Brandon Ave. apartment was huge, but apparently having a huge apartment on Brandon Avenue is the equivalent of having a spacious estate in East Beirut -- nice square footage, location leaving a little something to be desired. Like safety. My apartment also featured an exposed brick wall (very '70s chic) and an intimate look at trains as they roared past on the railroad tracks located about 4.3 inches from my bed at all hours of the night. My roommate claimed many times that she may or may not have seen train-hitching hobos (I think they're called tramps?) creeping around on those very train tracks numerous times. If I believed that people hitched rides on trains past the year 1896, I probably wouldn't question her. As it stands, I think she might have had too many Jack and Diets.
There came a point where I simply stopped telling people where I lived. I even went so far one time as to walk "to my apartment" with some of the cool kids from my seminar only to beg off before I got "home" by frantically ducking into Starbucks, claiming an insatiable desire for an iced latte.Needless to say, I was never invited on the group walk to Wertland again and thus no longer had to worry about faking my address. This, by the way, is not a story I'm proud of.
I am, however, proud of my new apartment. It is located, I am pleased to say, on the corner of 13th and John across from those swanky Venable apartments which, along 214 14th St., is clearly the pinnacle of housing locations. Assuming our subletters do not harm the apartment beyond repair, it will feature a dishwasher (finally!), bathrooms without linoleum tiling (heaven!) and a deck ideal for both tailgating and beer pong (rejoice!). Somewhere, angels are singing. And if I have anything to say about it, they are singing the classic Dashboard Confessional ballad "Vindicated." Because I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well. Or at least my living situation is.
But right as my living situation at school is coming together, my living situation at home is falling spectacularly apart. At this moment, my family home is being devoured by termites. It has withstood hurricanes galore, but let me tell y'all, it is fighting a losing battles with these ferocious 'mites.
My family and I didn't feel too bad about it at first, as we thought it the perfect excuse to climb the housing hierarchy ladder ourselves. See, the area around my hometown is essentially divided into two areas by a large body of water which some would call a bayou, but, for the sake of not sounding like the reformed white trash that I am, I prefer to call a bay. There is Destin, where fish sandwiches are overpriced and middle-aged women sport customized Juicy sweat suits and laughable amounts of Botox, and Niceville, where people are toothless and, unless signs explicitly specify otherwise, do not wear shoes. Though we still sport all of our teeth, my family has resided in Niceville for the past 15 years. But with insects tearing our house to bits, we decided to upgrade and make an offer to buy a stylish house on, get this, "Olde Plantation Place."
Our first offer, in a move I coined as "The Bitch-Slap Across the Bayou," was brutally rebuffed. So was our second. At the present, we have not even received acknowledgment of our third, which I believe is the real estate equivalent of the silent treatment. Ouch. I guess we should have known that we weren't their kind when the realtor started describing a room that could be "set up in a lovely manner for the caterers," and I started snickering and wondering if KFC takeout counted as catering. Apparently not.
My hometown housing issues aside, I am looking forward to enjoying my new digs on 13th St. without shame. Visitors are always welcome -- just look for the beer pong table, the absence of indoor exposed brick and train-riding stowaways and, of course, the sweet crooning of Dashboard Confessional.
Erin can be reached at gaetz@cavalierdaily.com.
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