A Tragic Comedy

Reasons I have to get my family the hell out of this apartment:

1. The drunk behind me called the police two days ago because my baby was crying at bedtime and woke him up. The cop knocked on my door, asked if anyone was being spanked in here and then took my name when I said no. End of story, but how annoying and embarassing. Every neighbor I have sat on their porch and watched it happen. And every one asked what happened when I saw them the next day.

2. This guy lives two doors down from me and is the apartment maintence dude. Nice, eh? My only concession was that when I put in my former Las Vegas zip code I got this. Check out how many of those have a non-compliant status. There are six or seven total offenders in all of Ely, all are compliant. How lucky were we to find an apartment within 100 yards of one?

3. There appears to be a skunk in our neighborhood. A real one, as in little woodland creature. Two nights in a row I've smelled the lovely aroma. Someone's dog must have been sprayed. Not mine, thank God for small favors.

4. Turns out I need more than 100 square feet of perosonal space to be happy. Four hundred square feet just isn't enough for three kids, two adults, two kitties and a dog. Go figure.

5. Everyday, starting at about 10 a.m., every apartment but ours has at least one person sitting on the stoop drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. Apparently we are the only family where the husband actually has a job. I'm not joking. The rest of the men congregate and get drunk. The sex offender, the weird school bus driver (ok, he has a job. But should he really be drinking beer at 10 a.m.? I think not), the jackass who got mad when Nick knocked on their door and looked through the little window because "me and Tami were doin' stuff, ya'know?", the nasty drunk behind me who called the cops on Ruby--the list goes on. The booze it up while their wives work.

Who would have guessed that by far my best neighbor is the kid next door who has a zillion friends over everyday. He clears them out by ten because he knows my baby has to sleep, and he yells at them if they peel into the parking lot too fast. And he has a job. The older guys need to take notes.

We're looking at two places to rent this weekend. Both have 900 square feet and two bedrooms, but at this point that sounds like heaven. One has a basement that you have to go outside to get into, which has a bedroom in it. The rest of the basement is unfinished, but that gives us three bedrooms if Adrienne is brave enough to sleep down there.

Wish us luck.