6.25.2005

"But officer, there wasn't anything about murdering kids in my basement in the rental contract!"

Moving. I’m moving. Tired. Need boxes. Always more boxes. Crack addicts are like social-drinkers compared to the desperate lengths someone who’s moving will go to to get more boxes. The other day M and I snuck into the recycle bin behind the hospital – yes, the medical-waste area recycle Dumpster – to root around for some good, high-quality boxes.

There are parts of moving I really enjoy – purging the excess stuff that just seems to accumulate despite all efforts: the papers, the unworn clothes and so forth; going to a new space, starting a new adventure. Other parts, I don’t so much enjoy. Like discovering that your current residence is a total shit-hole. Smudges and finger prints on the wall. Chips in the paint. Stains – oh, God, such disturbing stains – in the carpet. Windows that look like they’ve been licked clean. And, of course, the boxes. Always more boxes. Boxes.

I’ve always been reluctant to move. I think I approach moving the way some people approach relationships – no matter how awful, no matter how much you know you’ll be happier if you move on, you worry that you’ll never find anything as good again. God, my little studio apartment in Portland had silverfish, rusty rusty rusty pipes, it was fucking freezing, and so on. What prompted me to leave that little Eden? When the ceiling collapsed. Seriously. During the flood in 1996 (‘96? ’94? Whenever. That time Portland flooded) so much water built up on the roof and I was on the top floor, and the water decided my place looked nice and moved in. Quite suddenly in the middle of the night, in fact. I decided to maybe look around then. My moving saga is like a contemporary real-estate version of Candide.

Part of the contract when you rent or purchase a new place is an agreement not to use illegal narcotics in the place. This is a bit silly. If this is the route we want to go, shouldn’t we be including something about no arson, no child abduction, and no fabricating reasons to start war? I mean, if the contract really works. But of course it doesn’t. I guarantee that at no time, ever, has someone refused to move in to a place because of this clause. "Let’s see…lawn maintenance…payment due on the first…okay…Whoa! Hold the fucking phone a second there, Mr. Furley! No drugs? But I wanted to make meth! I already stole a truck full of Sudafed and everything! And though I, apparently, have no problem breaking federal laws, poisoning others and slowly destroying myself, I would NEVER violate a rental contract. Ah, crap. Well, if this is going to be in all housing contracts, I suppose I will quit the drugs, get a job and contribute to society. Good sir, could you point me to an LL Bean store and a Four-Square Church?"

I mean, that’s the idea, right? I love the idea that these little tidbits not only address, but even combat, these problems. The U.S, in the last hundred years has really hit the trifecta of idiotic, unwinnable wars. War on drugs. War on terror. And, my personal favorite, The War on sex the government instigated in the beginning of the twentieth century.

None of those things will ever really be done away with so long as people are still moving into new homes, because someone in need of a good box will offer or threaten the use of any and all three of those things.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

LMAO. You are too goddamn hilarious, that acronym means "laughing my ass off" in case you didn't know.)

2:03 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love moving. Though, I've never moved in my entire life. But, stealing boxes is a wonderful thing to share with someone. When my brother was moving from apartment to apartment, after each year at his college, you could find me, my dad, and my brother, hunting for boxes. Ah, such sweet memories.

9:49 PM  

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