I’ve waited 27 days to write this

Today I felt inspired to do this:

You might be thinking “What, I did not subscribe to a crafting blog. What the eff is this?”

Don’t worry, this is NOT a crafting blog, nor will it ever be. So let me explain. Bit of background info: I am renting a bedroom in a sketchy, messy 3 bedroom house that’s occupied by a family. Why? I moved to Colorado and needed to lock down a random sublet so that I’d have a place to live while going on job interviews and just trying to make my way out here. I found this place on Craigslist, was stressed out and sick of searching for apartments and jobs, and mailed them a check, sight unseen.

I knew it wasn’t going to be ideal, but I didn’t know it would be like this.

Laundry room:

I think they took the concept of a “laundry room” literally, because there are clothes EVERYWHERE. I’m assuming they’re still like that, because I haven’t been down there since my first time doing laundry. I’d be okay with wading through other people’s dirty clothes, but it also smells like cat pee and, on top of that, a few days ago there was a sewage leak. Once a personal preference, now a safety hazard. I’m out of clean underwear.

Living room: 

Mostly uninhabitable, 2 points for irony! The one time I sat on the couch was the last time I sat on the couch, frankly because I’m afraid of whatever is lurking in the cushions that’s feeding off Cheetos from 2008.

Parents:

I met the mother, Buffy, when she was talking on a Nokia cell phone as she walked through the front door. She hung up and told her husband:

“We can’t use this cell phone, they can track it. We need to get another cell phone.”

Then she turned to me and explained that Hunter’s father was trying to find out where his son was because they just got custody of him (red flag #1). Then she introduced herself to me. Best first impression ever!

(Later, the mother told me that she’s a germaphobe. Several times, actually. Please refer to the previous pictures of the house, and let me know if you find this amusing too.)

Kids:

This is the 2 year-old girl who follows me around everywhere. She’s cute but she often stinks because her parents don’t bother changing her diaper or her clothes.

This picture represents the 6 year-old BONUS child named Hunter. I don’t have a picture of him because I don’t like him, so this picture of a redhead should suffice. I say “bonus” child because the day I moved in, the father sat me down in the foyer (nearly gave me a heart attack — who “sits” their tenants down upon arrival?) and told me that, surprise, Hunter would be living with the family. I was informed that Hunter is the wife’s child from an abusive relationship that she “just got out of.” ..Red flag #2.

“The Wall”

Every wall in the living room is known as “The Wall,” which is a more spacious form of “The Corner.” As in “Hunter!??? GET ON THE WALL!” Said child stomps over to The Wall, faces it, and the parents continue watching TV. Child turns and watches the TV. Child stands there for 45 minutes, because he spoke while on The Wall and thus extended his initial “minute” on the wall by 44 minutes. Actually, even a well-behaved “minute” can last 20 minutes — I’ve seen it a couple times.

This is not a recommended form of parenting.

Sooooooo how does the Karma’s a Bitch mason jar fit into all this?

Well, for the past four or five days, the family’s been gone.

“I found out that they’re not coming back,” said the shirtless/hairy man that also rents a room in the house (another surprise). He was on his way to the bathroom holding a shower caddy. One perk of living with creepy older men is that you get to see them on their way to shower or use the bathroom, and then get visualizations of things to come. Ugh.

“What? Wait.. what? I thought they owned the house?” I was surprised, but also kind of amused at the same time. Nothing really shocked me at this point in the game.

“No, I guess they rent it.” Aha.. Renters were renting to renters. Quite clever of them. “Yea, Buffy’s sister came by earlier this morning when you were gone, and she said that they weren’t coming back, and she asked me if I wanted to keep the cats.”

The Cats:

I wasn’t too surprised that they had skipped out on their own rent, left the place a complete mess, and left most of their belongings, but I was surprised that they were completely fine with abandoning two cats to basically die of starvation. Cool.

On one hand, their leaving might be an upgrade because the cats were neglected in the first place. My second week here, I noticed that their water bowl was empty and I filled it up. The black little guy ran right over and drank like he just stumbled across an Oasis on the Oregon Trail. I’ve been feeding them ever since. The family also has a puppy, who they apparently decided was worthy of bringing along. He spent most of his time on a chain in the dirt backyard or locked in the shed overnight.

I know this is a humor blog, and I was trying to keep a good sense of humor in a situation that I couldn’t control, but stuff like this just makes me hate humanity. Sure, there are some decent people out there, but there are way more pieces of sh*t who are completely irresponsible and assume that their actions don’t have consequences. Or worse, they know exactly what they’re doing but they don’t care. I feel like the past couple of years I keep meeting more of these people.

So.. telling myself “karma is a bitch” is sometimes the only thing that settles me down. I don’t believe in any god so I’m not capable of thinking that someday they’ll meet their maker in a firey pit of misery. I guess I believe that “you get what you give” and “what goes around comes around.” Actions have reactions. When you feed your 2 year old a steady diet of soda, chips, fried chicken, and pizza, she’s probably going to resent you when she hits 13 and gets picked on for being overweight. She’ll hate you even more when she realizes there’s no money for college because you skipped out on your rent 800 times. And in some mysterious way, when she runs away at 17, that’s karma coming back at you for when you decided to abandon two cats and leave them to starve and die. Karma’s a bitch.

Dear Mom, I’m doing just fine in Colorado without a gun

“You hear what happened in Colorado, at that movie theater?” The carpenter working on my Mom’s house stood there looking at me and dangling his paint-smattered hammer.

I said I did, then internally questioned whether I looked like the type of person to ignore national news in favor of reading People Magazine. Probably my hair. Anyway, we were standing in the middle of the living room with my Mom. She had just told the carpenter that I was leaving today, making the move from Boston to Colorado for a change of scenery that I’ve thought about making for a long time.

This is the state of Massachusetts, or as I like to call it “the state that beckons Europe to come get in the van to play with its puppy”

“Let me tell you,” he started, planting his feet apart on the paper-covered wood floor. “Those shootings never would have happened if there were tighter gun laws in this country. It’s ridiculous! Any Joe can go down to Walmart and pick himself up a [insert gun name here — frankly I don’t remember what type of gun he was referring to but I remember using Context Clues to understand that he was talking about a gun].”

I could see that he wanted me to agree with him, because that’s what people on vague/poorly researched political tangents want you to do.

Instead I decided to say what I was thinking.

“I don’t think gun laws would have stopped him, I think he’s just crazy. If he didn’t have guns he probably would have found out some other way to kill a bunch of people.”

The guy had that glassy-eyed, far-off, ‘the-government-is-screwing-us-those-sons-of-bitches’ look that I’ve grown accustomed to as a child of a giant, Irish, middle class family. I knew that face well, and there was no way to reason with it.

Later, I said goodbye to my hair elastic-obsessed cat Ponyo and filled up my water bottle in the kitchen sink. My Mom and I hugged and walked out the door, said a 20-minute goodbye in which she scheduled me to come back for New Year’s, then I had to run inside to get a banana I had left on the kitchen counter.

I bumped into the carpenter in the kitchen. “You know what you need to do?” he said. “Buy a gun.”

I laughed. Then straightened my face because he was serious. “Are you serious? Why?”

“Colorado isn’t like it is here. You go hiking, there are mountain lions and black bears everywhere in those mountains. You need to protect yourself. I’m telling you, buy a gun. And you never know what type of situation you might get into out there when you’re all alone and female.”

I said I’d think about it, and silently appreciated his flexibility concerning gun laws, which apparently should be adapted to different situations.

Looking back, I now realize that the carpenter had painted my Mom a beautiful picture of me being ripped to shreds by wolverines and velociraptors after I innocently decided to hike up a mountain without a gun. Or getting beaten up in a dark alley somewhere, gun-less, and crying out “WHY DIDN’T I LISTEN TO HIMMMM!”

Just to let you know, Mom, the most intimidating animal I’ve seen so far out here while hiking has been a chipmunk with no concept of personal space. At one point he did try to bite my toe, but I came down the mountain unscathed. And yesterday, something bit my right ankle. I’ll admit, after I got bitten I spent the next half hour waiting for the spider/rattlesnake’s poison to travel up to my heart and paralyze me. But it ended up being a red ant bite (so someone told me). You can tell the carpenter that I’m doing just fine without a gun.

Cheap-Ass Travel

If you have no money (like me), the best way to travel is to do resort work. Tons of resorts across the US and abroad need seasonal workers, and to attract us they offer sick benefits. At this job, we got to use powerboats for free and for as long as we wanted, we used wakeboards/waterskis/tubes/kayaks for free, we got a discount on the gas (which, split between 4 people ends up being $16 for an entire day of wakeboarding – basically free), and we got to go on tons of free employee trips to tourist spots. Oh, and housing was $50 a month, meals were Welfare-cheap, and they even gave us a free week on a houseboat if we finished out our contract. (I didn’t get to use mine because I live on the other side of the country.) This is the website that I and alot of other people have used to score jobs.

On that note, I’d like to begin showing off my next summer-job destination. Hopefully. They better love my application..

SUMMER 2009: THE NEXT FRONTIER

Washington state, you’re SO HOT right now. If I was a gentle but slow giant named Lennie and you were a mouse, I’d keep you in my pocket and stroke you. Don’t get the literary joke?:

I haven’t even BEEN to Washington, but the Internet is making it look so damn sexy. Lock the door, unzip your jeans, and check out this national park porn, sponsored by 1-800-RED-HOTT:

Her name is Olympic National Park. She loves stretching out naked on an empty beach.. with or without you. Dial 9 now to talk to her.

When Olympic National Park goes out with the girls, she’s fantasizing about you with your pants off. That’s her secret. Dial 9 now to talk to her.

She’s living three separate lives. No one knows. Hear her secrets when you Dial 9 now to talk to Olympic National Park.

Have you been a bad boy? Olympic National Park wants to teach you a lesson. A lesson you won’t forget. Dial 9 now to talk to her.

1-800-RED-HOTT

“Where local girls go wild”

Now that I’ve gotten you all hot and bothered, let’s talk about Presidents.

It only makes sense that my boy Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the mastermind behind National Olympic Park. FACT: He was my favorite US President ever since I did a paper on him in the eleventh grade. You tha man, FDR. (IMO, Obama should ditch the $900 billion-dollar tax rebate crap and do what FDR did after the Depression – create a bunch of jobs with conservation projects.) <– That wasn’t very Escapist of me and I do apologize. Ish.

Lake Quinault Lodge is the place I hope to get a job at. They offer hiking, kayaking, fishing, and apparently the rest comes easy. Kind of like your mom.

I’ve also applied at Stehekin Landing Resort in Washington (equally sexy), Sequoia/Kings Canyon in Fresno, California, and I did a general application for all Aramark resorts including the one pictured above. Lake Tahoe would be my second choice. A couple friends of mine worked there and loved it.

To be blunt, remaining in Massachusetts over the summer pretty much guarantees unemployment. So I’m escaping. :) <–shameless plug

Open Letter to the Birds that Took Down Flight 1549

Dear Birds,

Looks like your little terrorist attack on Flight 1549 backfired. Immediately following your poorly planned air strike, journalists declared Sully the Pilot a national hero, and even President Obama briefly considered changing career paths in favor of aviation school.

Admit it, birds. You’re just jealous that “iron birds” get all the fame and fortune. Well, let us know when you figure out a way to carve out your little stomachs into a fuselage with ample legroom. Because let’s get serious. You’re pretty much useless. If you’re not lying next to my mashed potatoes or endorsing Rogaine in front of the American flag, get out of my country. Or at least pay taxes.

Who dat

Oh – one last thing. Thank you for lowering airline rates. Screw “the economy” or “profit loss” – we both know that airlines are cutting prices because of you. Which is good for me, because now I don’t have to spend 4 hours on the Fung Wah bus to New York, inhaling the cocktail of body odors emitting from each plastic-bag-carrying passenger. Instead, I can bank on a brief flight to NYC, perhaps an altercation with one of your kind mid-air, and at the very worst, a layover in the Hudson River.

Best wishes for your future FAILendeavors,

Samantha