whoa baby.
look at you, sunday night, rolling in like the clouds did and bringing a sudden onslaught of goodness. it has been trying: my nerves are frayed, my eyes tired of focusing, and my lips permanently placed in a upside-down smile so that perhaps a collogen infusion will be the only way to get the frown wrinkles to wash away with the rest of it.
but today, unlike most sundays, more than dirt rinsed off with that medicated face wash. all the residues of life seemed worthwhile and earned as i stared an old man in the eyes.
he did something miraculous for me today. he told me stories of he and his wife scuba diving off the coast ("do they still do that?") and of wonderful morning roaring from the lions at the zoo ("they bring in the sunshine!") and of a seemingly perfect view of the fireworks on 4th of July accompanying the neighborhood barbeque where he produces his secret recipe tri-tip and the lady with the young child next door has "the best tater salad around".
he wandered around the place, pointing out all the aspects that life has trained him to believe appealing to young women trying to make it on their own, repeating over and over the characteristics he was most proud of-- not because he wanted us to take extra notice, but because he just didn't remember bringing up the large bathroom and duel living rooms the first two times.
yes he wandered around the house, pointing here and muttering, reminicing about the past couple that lived in the unit and their evening gin and tonics they shared with him, joking about the fold-down ironing board in the kitchen and even alluding to our romantic life, trying his hardest to sell the modestly priced unit and himself (as the landlord always has at least some influence upon how one might perceive the place), all the while we wandered behind him like freshly hatched ducklings, oohing and aahing over every receipient of his pointed finger's attention and trying our hardest to sell ourselves (aren't five girls just a little hard to trust?), praying to god that we wouldn't hear the words we had heard so many times in the past few weeks: "I'm sorry, but we're looking for no more than three tenents, preferably a family."
and then we asked the inevitable: are there applications?
and he blinked his foggy eyes twice, sized us up and down, asked about our majors, reinforced the sound curfew, and then, led the way to his home, a mere one house away, bringing us inside to place two keys in each of our hands: one for our newly found house and one for our first-ever garage. no questions about past landlords, no questions about monetary standing and absolutely no application. just a check for the first and last months rent, and our own choice of move-in date. our own choice. our own house. our own downtown house. our own hottub ("but i don't want to hear about five naked girls being in here in the middle of hte night, you hear?"). our own grandfather, who was more understanding than we could have asked and far more complient with the ways of college students than could be hoped for. our own deck. our own view. our own lions in the morning. our own. all. our own.
but none of this was as wonderful as the feeling of the cold hard aluminum keys on a metalic ring pressing its shape into the palm of my hand. how could it be?
look at you, sunday night, rolling in like the clouds did and bringing a sudden onslaught of goodness. it has been trying: my nerves are frayed, my eyes tired of focusing, and my lips permanently placed in a upside-down smile so that perhaps a collogen infusion will be the only way to get the frown wrinkles to wash away with the rest of it.
but today, unlike most sundays, more than dirt rinsed off with that medicated face wash. all the residues of life seemed worthwhile and earned as i stared an old man in the eyes.
he did something miraculous for me today. he told me stories of he and his wife scuba diving off the coast ("do they still do that?") and of wonderful morning roaring from the lions at the zoo ("they bring in the sunshine!") and of a seemingly perfect view of the fireworks on 4th of July accompanying the neighborhood barbeque where he produces his secret recipe tri-tip and the lady with the young child next door has "the best tater salad around".
he wandered around the place, pointing out all the aspects that life has trained him to believe appealing to young women trying to make it on their own, repeating over and over the characteristics he was most proud of-- not because he wanted us to take extra notice, but because he just didn't remember bringing up the large bathroom and duel living rooms the first two times.
yes he wandered around the house, pointing here and muttering, reminicing about the past couple that lived in the unit and their evening gin and tonics they shared with him, joking about the fold-down ironing board in the kitchen and even alluding to our romantic life, trying his hardest to sell the modestly priced unit and himself (as the landlord always has at least some influence upon how one might perceive the place), all the while we wandered behind him like freshly hatched ducklings, oohing and aahing over every receipient of his pointed finger's attention and trying our hardest to sell ourselves (aren't five girls just a little hard to trust?), praying to god that we wouldn't hear the words we had heard so many times in the past few weeks: "I'm sorry, but we're looking for no more than three tenents, preferably a family."
and then we asked the inevitable: are there applications?
and he blinked his foggy eyes twice, sized us up and down, asked about our majors, reinforced the sound curfew, and then, led the way to his home, a mere one house away, bringing us inside to place two keys in each of our hands: one for our newly found house and one for our first-ever garage. no questions about past landlords, no questions about monetary standing and absolutely no application. just a check for the first and last months rent, and our own choice of move-in date. our own choice. our own house. our own downtown house. our own hottub ("but i don't want to hear about five naked girls being in here in the middle of hte night, you hear?"). our own grandfather, who was more understanding than we could have asked and far more complient with the ways of college students than could be hoped for. our own deck. our own view. our own lions in the morning. our own. all. our own.
but none of this was as wonderful as the feeling of the cold hard aluminum keys on a metalic ring pressing its shape into the palm of my hand. how could it be?
posted by The Smart Pineapple at 23:03
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