From My Apartment, I Stab At Me!

Well, I’m now all moved into my new apartment and all that remains is the laborious unpacking phase. I’ve got an RCN tech coming down tomorrow so I have internet access, and I’ve already managed to get my bedroom, bathroom, and the kitchen situated. I still have no couch, but I’m working on that, and I even have a small idea of how to arrange the front room so I can keep my preposterous collection of books.Though there are a couple things I’m not so happy about with the new diggs. Here’s a small list:

1. **God, What Have I Done!?**
  Yes, the first item in my list involves my own unparalleled forehead-smacking stupidity.  I knew the new apartment was practically right under the El, but it never entered my mind how difficult it might be to sleep with the constant ear-shattering noise.  Fuck.  I'm currently in the process of getting very heavy drapes made so I can block out some miniscule amount of the 1890's era Slow Clanking and Rattling Deathtrap, Now With Electricity(tm) technology.


2. **Partial Electricity**
  The fine and upstanding management company took it upon themselves to upgrade my ceiling fan, which I normally encourage.  However, they appear to have hired a cross-eyed epileptic whose vast compendium of experience as an electrician is comprised entirely on reruns of [Mr. Wizard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Wizard).  My livingroom and most kitchen outlets lack power, and no amount of flipping the breaker remedies this situation.  Either there is an electrical short, or 1/3 of my apartment is in a time-warp to 1890, which considering its proximity to the El, bears investigation.  Two outlets in my bedroom don't work either, but I don't know if this is related.


3. **Ancient Carpet**
  Though the apartment was presumably the result of a gut-rehab, the carpet somehow appears approximately sixteen thousand years old.  It's the same ultra-low pile garbage you'd normally find in an office building, soiled with some unholy and persistent *taint*, laid atop thoroughly *defeated* padding that begs for the sweet release of death.  The woman who showed me the apartment never even considered replacing it, sure that a cleaning would be enough.  I assumed they'd find their efforts futile and replace the carpet anyway, now I know better.  I keep forgetting to never give Chicago the benefit of the doubt, and that unless specifically asked, no resident of this hellacious ring of hell would actively prevent a giant spider from supping on the succulent juices of a small child. Touche, Chicago!


4. **Everything Old is <strike>New</strike> Old Again**
  Blinds in the bedroom?  Bent.  Blinds in the front room? Broken adjustment wand.  Upper Windows?  Made as a high-school shop project by a special needs student sporting a combined-total of six fingers.  Kitchen side sprayer?  No handle.  Stove?  No timer, no preheat light, and no front window.  TP dispenser?  Not secured to the wall, rusty and sported several clumpy layers of paint.  Having no faith in the management and quite unnerved by such a dilapidated bathroom fixture, Target provided a cheap replacement.  It's as if they have a stockpile of old broken crap from other apartments, only to install them as a welcome for new tenants.  Apparently they exhausted their supply of mirrors composed entirely of rear-view mirrors from fatal vehicle accidents glued together with the tears of starving orphan children being fed upon by giant spiders.

I should have known better, but I have a solution! I’ll continue complaining until management fixes this crap or I get a new apartment out of the deal. I get to harass a cabal of evil profiteers on a daily basis, and they get to let me; everyone wins!

Until Tomorrow