Life Underground

Well, it's been about a week and a half since Ben got back. We managed to spend a couple of days in Heber, visiting a few friends and some family in the area before we came back to St. George to move into our new-to-us apartment.

It's a basement.

It's gross.

I'm the one that found it so I shouldn't complain. But I'm going to.

Sometimes real life sucks. Don't get me wrong, having Ben back is great; moving into a not clean 1970s basement apartment with a wood burning stove/fireplace, OLD church-style carpet, and a wooden toilet seat that's so nasty Ben is replacing it (without being asked) right this minute. . . . sucky.

And I thought Wymount was the yuckiest place I'd ever live. This place makes Wymount look like a palace.

To be fair, I have seen worse. Much worse. Like the "home" of a girl I used to visit teach in Provo. Ben and I had just moved south of campus (out of Wymount) and into a new ward. We lived in a pretty nice 2 bedroom apartment with all the amenities married college students crave: washer/dryer, dishwasher, large closets, bathroom cabinets (all of the things we hadn't had yet in our 4 years of marriage). I assumed others in the ward lived in similar circumstances.

I was wrong.

The ward was full of basement apartments. And my new visiting-teachee's had to be one of the worst. The first time I went to visit Megan* I spent 10 minutes searching the outside of the house, looking for a way in. I finally went around to the back and leaned over to peer through the open back door down a long concrete hallway with multiple doors. Huh? I got closer and heard a washing machine running. Someone must be home if the back door is open and the washing machine is going, right? I walked down the stairs and through the door and yelled Megan's name. No answer. Hmmm.

I decided to call my visiting teaching companion's cell to find out if she had arrived and if she knew what was going on. Turns out she was out front and was equally as perplexed as I. We finally got brave and ventured down the long dim hall through the back door. Turns out the doors down that hall led to individual apartments. Someone had turned a 1600 sq foot basement of a 1960s house into 4 married student apartments AND a small communal laundry room. What the heck?

Megan's apartment was 2 rooms. You entered through the kitchen which had a door to the bedroom which had a door to a bathroom. At least I assume there was a bathroom back there. She always kept the bedroom door closed, so I can't be sure. When we'd visit my companion and I would sit at the kitchen table which was against the wall on one side, 6 inches from the sink on another, and 1 foot from the refrigerator on the other. Megan would stand. She had an old fashioned stove that wouldn't even fit a normal sized cookie sheet. The sink was stained yellow. How is this place BYU approved?, I would wonder. But she seemed happy there. She was a newlywed afterall. The rent was cheap AND it wasn't like she was going to live there forever.

So this week as I've been scrubbing red globs of goo off the bottom of the cabinets above the kitchen sink and Ben's been scrubbing mildew stains out of the grout in the shower (I refused to take a shower before he did so), I've been taking deep breaths, counting my blessings (like 1350 sq feet, 3 bedrooms, free cable and internet), and channeling my inner Megan.

I can be happy here. I'm practically a newlywed afterall. The rent's cheap AND I will not be living here forever (or any longer than 6 months, which is when our lease runs out).

*name has been changed