Friday, May 2, 2014

The Trouble With Curtains

   I hate the heat. This sometimes can seem strange to people, because I am from the South, where the temperature would get into the 100's, and you could literally crack an egg on the hood of a car and watch it fry ( I know, because I did this, and pissed my bestie's mom off royally), but I will complain loudly and bitterly when the heat reaches 80, much less 100. I don't like being hot. Nor do I like being cold, but for me, it's easier to get my home warm than it is to cool my home off, so I hate heat worse, because heat causes me the most trouble.
   Last summer was my first summer in this apartment, and last summer was enough to cause me to vow to make my apartment over drastically for the heat this summer. I will never spend another summer like that again - we about died of heatstroke just by sleeping in our own beds. You see, most (if not all) apartments in this area of Washington do not come with air conditioning, and then when you sign the lease, there is always this statement about not allowing window air conditioning units because they make the complex look tacky. So in Washington, apartments can get pretty hot. (Just listen to me bitch.)
   Anyway, in regards to that, we have had our first week of 80 degree weather, and we haven't even reached the end of the school year. We're still in Spring, so I am over hear just bitching and moaning away, and shopping on Amazon. Because I need (NEED!!! Need - I tell you!!!) three more fans and some blackout curtains, which caused the UPS delivery man to make cracks about my having bought out the whole store when he delivered all those fans and curtains and curtain rods.
    According to the lease, we aren't really supposed to hang curtains either, but I mean, really??!! And they aren't likely to find out at any rate; I don't like people coming into my apartment, not even the maintenance people, which means that I only call them if I absolutely cannot figure out how to fix something. I mean, really, if my toilet messes up I will sit here watching people fix toilets on YouTube just to see if I think I can do it too. So no one is really that likely to notice the blackout curtains that I have hung, because I need this apartment to be cooler than it was last summer. After all, tenants dying of heat stroke in their own apartments would be bad publicity anyway, right? I'm helping them out here, by keeping us alive. Anyway, that's the argument that I plan to use if anyone actually finds out and actually cares enough to object, but I digress.
   Of course, I bought curtains for both my living room (which also happens to be my bedroom) and the bedroom (the kiddo's), but I only managed to hang the curtains in my living room. I need help for the others -- I'm not hanging another set of curtains solo. The living room curtains were a nice exercise for my sailor's vocabulary, but the neighbors have probably heard enough of my shrieking and swearing (all the windows were open -- oops). I need help, after being hit in the head by an unruly curtain rod countless times, cutting my finger open, and then thinking that after all of that crap, I don't think the damn rod is up right anyway, I have admitted defeat and called my sister. She needs to come help me, because if she doesn't, I'm moving into her basement-level, cool-as-can-be apartment for the summer. And as much as we get along, she doesn't want me and my daughter sleeping on her couches (she has 2 sleeper couches) for about three months. Granted -- I should have waited for her in the first place, because she had already told me that she would put the curtains up for me, but I thought that maybe I could save her the trip.
   Regardless, the point is, if I have to staple those damn blackout curtains to the damn wall, they are going up. I am not gonna swelter this summer. Summer should be about fun, camping and hiking and beaches and all that; summer should not be about cooking in your own juices while you try to sleep. 

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