I Live in The Overlook Hotel

Days till Halloween: 22

Today is a day full of horror for many reasons: First of all, it is my half birthday. This means that today, I am 22 and-a-half, which means I'm halfway to 23, which means in a year and a half I will be 24 and be entering my mid-twenties. If that's not the stuff bone-chilling horror stories are made of, then I just don't know what is.

Second of all, the rug in my new apartment building is totally covered in old blood stains. It reminds me of the hotel from The Shining, with those long creepy corridors with freakishly ugly twin girls standing at the ends of them, and that whole elevator full of blood thing. Erin and I are certain that mass murders have taken place in the hallways, and that the management merely sat back and congratulated themselves on choosing red rugs in order to hide the stains as best they could.

The red should hide that nicely!

Don't get me wrong, my apartment itself is clean and bright and almost sickeningly cozy; it's just that the rest of the building is used to kill tourists, in the American version of Hostel. I'm not entirely sure what I'll do when someone in a butcher's outfit comes dashing out from behind a locked door, wielding a blowtorch and a chainsaw, but as long as I can explain that I'm a citizen, maybe I'll be alright. Luckily, I think maybe only 20% of the people in the building can speak English, so there should be plenty of players for The Most Dangerous Game.

Erin and I somehow managed to unpack everything from the UHaul and get it all upstairs, using only one pathetically tiny dolly, including the couch and both the box spring and mattress, with only minor bodily injuries. Due to a much needed Prison Break cool off period, and the fact that we had to move the truck several times, I was once again called upon to show the world my insanely awesome parallel parking skills. Seriously, I am the grand master of parallel parking; there's no space too small for me to get that fucking UHaul in - AND I get right up next to the curb, none of this "ass hanging out in the middle of the road for cars to hit and bikers to go careening over" shit.

These pussies have nothing on me

This morning I got to wake up super early and again flex my parking and maneuvering muscles, as I somehow managed to get the truck out of the tiniest space known to mankind (meaning some douchebag parked right on my ass so there was like 2" of space between the UHaul and a stupidly expensive Mercedes Benz that I had to resist ramming.) This was, of course, at the ungodly hour of 6:30am, as I had to get the truck back to the UHaul place around 7am, so I could get to work on time.

Of course that meant that everything that could go wrong did. I fought with a tiny, bitter old man (I mean, I'd be bitter too, if I was like 75 and worked at a UHaul station), had to fill the gas guzzling tank with $50 more in gas, even though I told them the truck was eating gas too rapidly, had to argue that I knew what I was talking about since I've driven from Boston to DC about 100 times now, and finally had to control my homicidal urges and not beat the customer behind me in line to death.

I sucked it up and got the gas, knowing I'm going to call UHaul and demand some money back, since the truck was pretty much the most heinously disgusting thing ever created, but that meant I had to venture out into the depths of Northeast DC, a place I really should never go alone. A drunk man asked if he could pump my gas at the Hess station, and then some very large man offered to "get down" with me, even when I lied and said I had a boyfriend (interestingly enough, I felt the same level of terror at the idea of being in a relationship that I did at the idea of the drunk man accidentally blowing the UHaul up.)

Regular, Premium, or Corona?

Since I luckily survived my harrowing adventure this morning (and somehow, shockingly, made it to work on time, even though I had to Metro it back - which meant taking the red line, then having to transfer to the blue line - walked back to the apartment, showered, and had time to sing a little to my Limewire playlist), I get to spend the evening unpacking and setting things up exactly to my neurotic needs. Then it's time for a dinner and HOUSE!!!!! break, and then more unpacking and organizing. I'm embarrassingly excited. And this time I know not to plug in more than one thing at a time, since this morning I blew two fuses and learned the hard way that I can't have a lamp AND my laptop going at the same time.

The Great Boston Adventure: The Aftermath

Days till Halloween: 23

Once again, I have overcome the odds and triumphed - I have made it, intact and in one piece, back to DC. Oh, and I didn't kill Erin, either. We survived the overnight Amtrak, handled my family with poise and grace, and conquered the foulest beast known to mankind: the UHaul truck.

Warning: May Smell Like Dead People

We bravely picked up our truck in Randolph, MA, a place where it's not usually safe to go alone outside after noon, at a gas station called - no lie - Divine Favor Gas and Auto. I'm not entirely sure why someone would chose to dub their gas station as such, but I managed not to ask the terrifically nasty attendant, even though he was wearing a lanyard that said "Jesus is my friend." Regardless of any longstanding camaraderie between the J-Man and said attendant, clearly the 'divine favor' name was one of intense irony, as the station was frighteningly dirty, and I'm certain there were corpses stashed in the locked bathrooms.

I was wondering where I left you!

The truck itself was merely a continuation of the horrors of its surroundings, and were clearly instruments of the devil. Upon opening the door, we were first blasted with the smell of dead, cheesy, rotting feet, and were then immediately blasted by a swarm of fruit flies, so numerous that I literally had to shriek and shut the door and run away - since I'm super brave, and all.

I informed the attendant that the truck was full of a swarm of flies, and he helpfully picked up a soaking wet squeegee. About five minutes later he realized that shaking the squeegee around only made the seats wet, and didn't actually get rid of the fly problem, so he aired the car out (courtesy of my receipt and insurance information, which he crumpled up without realizing what they were), and then proceeded to speed the car across the lot to get the last of the bugs out. He informed us there had to be a piece of rotting fruit somewhere in the car, but he wasn't sure where it was, so he wasn't going to do anything about it; then he taunted us for being afraid of the bugs. While I'm terrified of spiders, I don't mind a fruit fly or two - it's 500 of them that I don't enjoy. Especially when they're enclosed in the small cab of the truck that I have to spend the next 9 or so hours in.

Obviously, whoever had driven the truck before had been a filthy, filthy animal, and after dropping it off the attendants hadn't seen any reason to clean the truck, or air it out, or even check to see if there was anything seriously wrong with it. Fabulous!

Also fabulous was the fact that even though I ordered a truck with a dolly, a furniture mover, ropes, and, you know, the ramp that comes built into the truck, none of those things were actually included - made for a fun loading experience!

After getting the truck home (and managing not to asphyxiate along the way), Erin and I found a rotten banana (well, I believe it had once been a banana) that Rory said we should eat so we could get drunk, Febrezed the hell out of the cab and the seats, and wiped clean any and all surfaces that we could even remotely come in contact with. After a night getting aired out, and half a can of the delicious Berries and Paradise Febreze, the truck no longer smelled like a mortuary covered in Brie, and we were set to go!

I-95, here we come!

Oh, and UHaul also conveniently forgot to give us a lock for the truck. Not like anything would've been stolen, because the door would've opened on the highway and we would've killed someone when my couch came flying out and onto their windshield, but we decided not to be charged with some degree of vehicular homicide and stop on our way out of town to pick up a heavy duty lock. $15 later (and half an hour, since I forgot my microwave and my mother had to come meet us at Lowe's to deliver it), we were on our way! We had a cooler of ice cold Diet Cokes and Coke Zeros between the seats, Dunkin' Donuts breakfast sandwiches in our bellies, and a shitty $9 shower radio to hang from the rear view mirror, since oh yeah, the radio didn't work. Until maybe 30 minutes on the road, which meant 1) it scared the fucking shit out of us, and 2) we were out $9 for a crappy shower radio that didn't even work, and wasn't even entirely water proof. Go figure.

Heinous death trap of a UHaul aside, we hit the open road gleefully, and actually made great time as we hurtled along 95 South, narrowly avoiding hitting cars that kept passing in front of us and insisting on going 25 mph on a 65 mph highway. I didn't even get my customary road rage, since I was filled with the happiness of the blacktop; there's something magical about road trips, especially when I have the power of a massive truck at my disposal.

We decided that next year, when Erin's tenure with The Feminists is up, and I'm in the process of probably moving onto a different job (considering my bosses know I'll be here for a year or two and then move more into my chosen field), we're going to have our very own Supernatural adventure and roam the midwest and the prairie lands, stopping at well known haunted locations and detailing our travels. We discussed inviting the Reds, but figured they'd probably kill us along the way and then take off with all our money (hahaha what money?!) so we decided we wouldn't put them through that ordeal. And maybe along the way, we'll meet Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, and marry them. And by 'marry' I mean 'kidnap and make them our sex slaves.' God, Erin and I have some brilliant ideas.

Why is there a trail of cookies and softcore pornography leading to that abandoned warehouse?

We made it down to DC in about 9 hours (with breaks and gas stops included), and spent the rest of the night relaxing and watching Supernatural, since we can't stop ourselves. This morning I officially signed my lease (!!!!) and began moving some of my lighter belongings into the brand spankin' new apartment! It's small but cozy, lots of light and nice rugs, and a giant freaking walk in closet and bathroom area. All-in-all, I'm very pleased. Erin and I are going to unload the couch and my bed once we're out of work, since we both have to work today. Well, Erin has to go in for the full day, but I'm only in for a few hours since it's moving day and everything. Haha, Erin.

I shall update later with pictures and appropriate ramblings. I know you just can't wait.