Apartment Investigation

I'm really trying to make this not be a blog about nothing that I eventually stop updating altogether...hence this post where I apologize for not updating (which is actually the first sign of trouble in most soon-to-be abandoned blogs, I think). But my excuse is that I'm in the process of moving to Chicago, first to my generous friend's apartment while she's on her honeymoon and then at the end of October to my new "two bedroom" apartment on the street that I loathed most in Chicago when I lived adjacent to it two years ago.

But when I brought Jaime over as an objective observer who would check my possibly too low apartment-choosing standards (so what if the doors don't match? So what if the designation "bedroom," used in this context, only indicates that the room is neither a bathroom, a kitchen nor a living room? So what if it's on Western, the most heinous street of the Ukrainian Village after Ashland, a.k.a. "Trashland"? So what if my landlord and I joked about signing the lease on the hood of his car, but instead did it inside of his car, while it was running, after he referred to the place as "four walls and a roof"?), not only did she think the place looked all right, but we discovered a discarded banjo on the floor, a sure sign of...something. Something about how this must be the place for me since its current inhabitant, like myself, appears to like the idea of playing the banjo but probably doesn't put in the effort to make that a reality and instead keeps it kicking around on the floor of his "bedroom." However, that's where the similarities end, since two times poking through this guy's personal space without him present revealed:

a) a large assortment of drums stashed around the place, which can only be explained as the result of a horrible breakup with a drummer (let's say the drummer of the dog-fronted deathgrind band, Caninus) who left his/her drums at the apartment, probably after an abortive attempt at a lovers' animal band side project (Felinus? Bovinus? Porcinus? The difficulty of employing any of these vocalistic choices, particularly in the shadow of the commercial and societal impact of Caninus, would strain even the most committed of collaborations), which initiated first artistic and then romantic differences, the ups and downs of which are at the heart of all notoriously explosive vegan temperaments. This no doubt ended with the drummer abandoning the instruments that only seemed to mock his/her vision of a world in which pigs and kitties have as much claim to deathgrind culture as dogs do, and dudeman not being quite able to bring himself to throw them away. Or else he just got a lot of drums.

b) a bunch of robot action figures. I may be still reading Archie comics to such an extent that when my aunt and uncle came to stay and were going to be using my bathroom, I had to do a little shameful item-stashing of my own, but I certainly do not have a collection of robot action figures atop my "closet" in my "bedroom."

Anyway, if the landlady hadn't been standing there, you can be sure that I would have done some more digging around to get to the bottom of this drum mystery and any others that are none of my business. As it is, I'll be moving in before Halloween and less than a year from then some snoopy bastard like myself will no doubt be noting my floor banjo and bizarre collection of Archie comics. Until then, visitors, in very small simultaneous amounts, are welcome!