I have been a busy boy this last week. Work is kicking the crap out of me and the apartment hunt is in full swing. On paper there was a clear winner. Brand new renovation started just before the plague hit and finally finishing up this year. That means that once again I will be the first human to inhabit the space. It is also more than three hundred dollars cheaper than comparable sized units and they are offering two months free with a 14 month lease as well as discounted parking.
You might be asking yourself why I did not sign on the line which is dotted after my tour and it’s an old adage proving itself once again. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. The real truth of the matter is that my inner voice was screaming at me before I entered the building.
I’m looking for a home connected to the Saint Paul human habitrail system known as the skyway. Once a wonderful way to stroll protected from the elements it has taken a turn in the last couple years. As I made my way to the potential new spot it got worse and worse. I sped through my final gauntlet of beggars/assailants only to be met by a homeless camp.
The habitrail thing really held true at that moment because it had been quite a while since anyone had changed the wood chips in that part of the tunnel. I was transported to a zoo visit in winter as a child when the smell punched me square in the nose. I held my breath and made it safely into my new potential home only to be greeted by a character from a 1970s horror flick.
He was a nice enough fella but he couldn’t let go of his once long luxurious hair which now wouldn’t take long to do an exact thread count if you could clean it properly. Rail thin save a perfectly round beer belly enhanced by his too tight real life Polo shirt. As we walked into the first available place a blast of cold hit me hard and he explained that the heat went out over the weekend and the models hadn’t been reset yet. he tried to get it fired up but we left cold and him mumbling.
I immediately didn’t want the cold one so we went up a floor only to be frozen again. The units were beautiful brand new ice palaces. I did a quick walk around and even let him take me on the common area tour. When we were walking through the workout area HE brought up that some residents joked that there were cameras behind the mirrors but he assured me that was silly. I immediately flashed to that old movie starring one of the lesser known Baldwin brothers where the entire building was wired. Yup, explains the bags under his eyes and the oddly overdeveloped right forearm.
I politely declined his offer of more discounts explaining that this little slice of SkyWay just wasn’t for me. He mumbled something about me and everyone else… I had to walk the gauntlet in reverse to make it back to the work parking garage where I caught the tail end of a teenage group fight. Not really a Sharks and Jets scenario just some hormone fueled wild swings that weren’t really connecting. I normally enjoy a good scrap but the sum total of my last hour just made me sad.
The one I toured today was weird as well but the managers are the stars of the show. I’m not going into that story right now because this place is still in the running but she had an almost perfect Arnold Horshack laugh. (look it up if you don’t understand) not sure if I can take a year of that. Holy hell I’m a picky prick all of a sudden.