how not to impress a potential landlady

Our lease is up at the end of June, and after a deep discussion (which lasted all of three minutes), K and I decided to keep living together. After all, we've managed not to kill each other after almost five years, we know and appreciate (or at least tolerate) each other's quirks and foibles, and we're comfortable with each other.


Both of us being too punk-ass broke to live alone helps, too.


Our next decision was even easier to make: stay in our current place or find new digs?


Immediate consensus: new digs.


I mean, I love the little town where we live; it's where I grew up, so it's got that all-important familiarity factor. However, our apartment is a petri dish, and the complex is crawling with unsavory characters (the guy next door gives me a definite Edmund Kemper vibe) and screaming crotch-droppings; ergo, it's time to blow this popsicle stand.


G is out of town this weekend, so K and I decided to take this opportunity to do a little apartment-hunting.


The first place we visited, though obviously of 70's vintage, had a real charm to it. The apartment we looked at had two stories, with a half-bath on the bottom floor and a full bathroom on the top, and both bedrooms were approximately the same size, which was good. I surreptitiously inspected the windowsills and ceilings for any sign of mold, and found none.


The second place was right across from the first place, and was almost exactly the same. The landlady showed us a little storage closet in the living room, and K said, "Oh, that's the perfect size for a dead body."


The landlady turned around and stared at her. I started to make the throat-slashing gesture universally interpreted as "Shhh!", but feared it would be misinterpreted by the landlady as "Get her!"


"Well, a small one," K amended, and I bit my lower lip to quell a smile.


"I'm pretty small," the landlady meekly said.


Okay. Next.


The third place was set back in the hills, and despite a busy mall only a few miles away, it was eerily quiet. The manager showed us to a townhome-styled place, and pointed out the washer/dryer hookups in the storage closet.


"Our own washer and dryer," I said dreamily.


Then she showed us the bedrooms, one of which had...oh god...a window seat! Ever since childhood, I have yearned for a window seat.


And a pony.


Never got either, dammit.


After we thanked the third landlady, we got back in K's car and sat there for a minute. "That was really, really nice," K said.


"I know," I replied. "Let's not move here, though."


She glanced at me. "I think I know why, but tell me anyway."


"I just got a really weird vibe from this place. It was probably the nicest one of them all, and I friggin' loved that window seat, but there was just a ping on my radar that was telling me no."


"That's so fucking weird. Me too. Okay, we'll cross this one off."


See? We're perfect together. (Well, not TOGETHER as in, you know, together. We don't do it.)


Anyway, I don't know that we're done searching, but we both liked the first place an awful lot. I have already mentally decorated my future room with a lovely selection of items from Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie, and although I'm not looking forward to the actual move itself, I'll be glad when I'm all settled into my new home.


Wish us luck, kidlets!