When I left the island to hit Washington and arrange for the moving company to transport our worldly possessions 3,200 miles to southern Florida, I had no idea how much I'd come to depend on the little bit of stability I had on the MFI. For example, if I was locked out of my postage stamp sized apartment I could walk over to campus knowing that eventually I'd see my husband leaving an afternoon study session. Not the case in SoFlo.
I arrived at the rental house late in the afternoon on July 4 assuming that I could use the lockbox code the realtor had given me to get inside. No lockbox. I ended up using the garage code the previous tenant had mentioned in passing and lucked out because when they moved they left the door from the garage to the house unlocked. I figured ME kicking in a window would A. be a cross between Steve Carrell in 'Get Smart' & Rowan Atkinson in 'Mr. Bean' and B. land me in jail and there is absolutely no chance of a legit hairdo in the pokey. Two phone calls and one scathing e-mail later - a NEW realtor showed up to let me into the house.
Within the first 48-hours in the rental, I'd used my new broom to sweep a black snake smaller than a ruler and a frog bigger than my fist out of the garage. I'd also pummeled a Huntsmen spider with a body the size of a quarter with my running shoe. It was an old shoe, no need to wear it again. My ewww-dometer was creeping up at lightning speed. Still - I had running water, electricity, internet (via the network cable since I left the Wifi on the island), shopping, highways, Starbucks, and cable... just no TV.
I'd been sleeping on the couch purchased from the previous renter and Grey was camped out on the floor of his room since we had no furniture. Around 2 or 3 one morning I could hear the cat rattling blinds in the master bedroom and making a noise akin to Animal Planet Big Cats. I shuffled into the master bedroom ready to kill The Magster when I noticed, through the horribly skewed blinds, that something was IN our backyard. The motion lights hit it at just the right angle that I swore it was something from 'Jurassic Park' - only smaller and in my yard and REAL. What. The. Frak. I slowly walked toward the sliding glass door while straining to get a better look at my late night visitor. Sitting on my heels, I put my hands up on the glass like binoculars hoping to get a better look. The animal moved; I screamed. Falling backwards I pulled the blinds down, scared the cat, and cut the top of my foot open. Are you effing kidding me? Could this experience get any more ludicrous? I lose my ish over an armadillo?!? How in the world did my kid NOT wake up? Wide awake with 2 Band-Aids glued to the top of my foot. Damn. Stranded because I hadn't made an effort to purchase chardonnay. Double damn. Whatevs - I could do some more unpacking and organizing.
To date my work experience consisted of me leaning against the wall with my laptop propped on a pillow and resting on my knees. My back was killing me. Pacing the house I came up with a solution - I'd use Grey's piano bench as my desk and the new stepstool as a chair. Setting up my new 'office', I tried out the digs. Not bad. Not awesome, but definitely better than my butt falling asleep every hour on the hour. MacGyver’d that biznass!
