Post date: Apr 29, 2010 10:33:36 PM
Once upon a time it was a sunny day in central North Carolina. My room mate, Chris, and I were in the midst of "dead" week (the week right before exams), and as the year was drawing to a close, we had decided it was about time to find a place to live for the next year.
We'd already looked around a little, one place was falling neatly into line, but we had an appointment scheduled with somewhere just down the road, and decided it was still worth checking it out. We got slightly lost on the way there, but we arrived in time to get the keys and a map and check out the various units they had available.
We walked up to the little office building passing by a lovely green swimming pool. (Green? Ah, whatever.) We picked up a map and some floor plans, signed for some keys, said our thanks-and-goodbye and walked back to Chris's car. Almost back, we stopped for a moment, when Chris realized he's forgotten to ask where the nearest bus stop was. He jogged back, got some dots put on the map, and then we went back for the second time and got in the car. As Chris turned on the engine, he paused and gave me a confused look.
"What?" I said. A benefit of being room mates for almost two years is that one word translates just fine into a full sentence.
"Did they ever give us the keys?" One more trip back to the office and we finally had a keyring with the necessary keys attached. As we pulled out of the little parking lot, Chris said absentmindedly, "It's like a sign from God..."
I glanced out the window and smirked a bit. Pffsh. Sign from God. We visited the first unit which was quite nice, and very roomy. Cheap too, if we could find a third person. We walked across the parking lot to the second unit. On our way down the short stairs to get in, I heard a quiet explicative from behind me. I raised an eyebrow and glanced back. Chris hurried to catch up, unlocked the door, and took off his flip-flop to leave it outside. Small wonder - a dog dropping the size of my fist had attached itself to the bottom of his footwear. We looked over the layout, Chris took a phone call, on our way out we talked to a grad student who was living in an adjoining unit, and began to head back to the car. If there was time, we still had two more units to look at, based on the map. We began an offhand conversation of pluses and minuses.
"It's a bit further than I would have liked." I mentioned.
"Yeah, but it's significantly cheaper." Chris did some quick mental math (he's good at that). "I mean, this place is only $3--"
Conversation was cut short as we both steadied ourselves. We glanced back. We had simultaneously tripped on a block of concrete protruding a good inch and a half higher than it should have.
We silently finished walking to the car, got in and drove the next block to where the next open unit was supposed to be. We spent 10 minutes wandering around before we realized we had accidentally circled back into the wrong place. The only thing of interest there was a community laundry room.
Once we found the right place and turned in, we could immediately tell it was a bit different than the last section of cottages. I consulted the map to see where to go. As Chris turned left, I mentioned that we still had one more side-road to go. "We have keys for that building, though", he said.
I frowned at the map. "It's not marked on here."
He held up the key for me to take a look at. I blinked, shrugged, and circled the unit on the map. Sure enough, she'd forgotten to mark the building.
We got out of the car, walked down into the unit, and noted that the doors weren't numbered. Again Chris consulted the key, did a little mental math and extrapolation, and deduced which door the key belonged to.
He cautiously tried it in the lock. It fit, he turned, he opened the door.
Poor girl. We must have scared her half to death.
We left, she yelled at us. Once we realized that she did not have a gun or pepper spray, we shamefacedly apologized profusely, and explained that we had been given a key to her apartment. We had not meant to just walk in on her. She handled it rather well, really, accepting our apology and advising us to watch out for any basement-level apartments. She told us about roaches and $450 electric bills. She did not need to tell us about management accidentally giving her key to prospective residents.
We got in the car, still slightly unnerved, and began to drive back to our university.
"Well," I said. "I guess since we weren't listening to the signs, God decided to send us a doozy."
After a few moments of silence, we both began laughing. We mentally crossed that particular complex off our list of potentials.