Living Conditions...

As some of you already know, I have moved my place of residence. It's not far from where I was before. I am still living on the beach. It's closer to campus and right across the street from the Polynesian Cultural Center.

Have you ever noticed how new places take some time to get used to? My new place is one of those places. First, the whole place has tile flooring. I tried to walk around barefoot and my feet were as black as an African night. I have to wear my slippahs everywhere I go in the house.

I guess that should not be such a big deal since the whole house is the same size as my parent's walk-in closet. We have four guys in less space than Robert Downey Jr's medicine cabinet.

To save on space, the bedroom and the bathroom have been combined. I don’t mean connected, I mean one room. The sink, mirror and counter space are also our boudoir. Fortunately, there is a door for the toilet. But, the toilet leaks, so I have to wear my galoshes when I go in. That room reminds me of Luke’s swamp in the Dagobah system.

As a result of the space issues, we have bunk beds. Being large of girth, I was a natural pick for top bunk. If this was just a regular bunk bed, this would not be a problem. We have home-made bunk beds. They are sturdy, but they are also taller than Goliath. Again, that wouldn’t be a problem, except that there is no ladder. I have to use the house mop to pole-vault myself up. Again, this would not be a problem, except the ceiling is rather low. And, again, this would not be a problem if the ceiling wasn’t made of asbestos shrapnel. Well, I don’t know what it’s made of really. It’s some sort of soft, white, foamy stuff. If you even look at it wrong, it falls in your eye. When I breathe too heavy at night I wake up thinking it snowed on me. The stuff leaves a white trail on anything it touches. If I had druggies around, they’d be trying to score off of my sheets.

I at least like the folk that I live with. That is not to say that we have not had our problems. One night I scaled up the post to get to my bed. Half-way through the night, my feet felt sticky. Through the soft glow of my computer monitor I could see that I had something stuck to my feet. I was tired and mostly out of it, so I tired to sleep anyway. All night the sticky feet bugged me.

In the morning I found that my feet were covered in gum. It was gross. I could not figure out for the life of me how I got gum on my feet. I wore my slippahs all night before bed and they had nothing on them. I cleaned my feet up and eventually forgot about it.

Today, I crawled up my bed again. Suddenly, I noticed that I had fresh gum on the bottom of my foot again. I then put it all together. “Todd, did you have gum just a second ago?”

“Ya,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

As it turns out, Todd’s chewing gum does not lose its flavor on the bed post over night - because it ends up on my feet instead.

Well, that venting aside. I do enjoy living right on the beach. I could literally be in the ocean within 15 seconds of choosing to do so. I wake up to the best view I have ever had in my life.

Like it or leave it, I will be graduating in a few short weeks and will be out of here. I’m sure that it won’t be long before I can finally find a place again that I can call home.