Monday, September 14, 2009

Stories I like to tell: Part I

Have I ever told you about our first apartment? It was the cheapest married student housing Ricks College had to offer. Sounds perfect, right?
When we moved in there were boogers on the wall. I'm not kidding. Right behind the couch, a striking collection of boogers wiped there by the previous tenants. We could hear every single noise from every apartment adjacent to ours (ev-er-y noise, I'll speak no more of that). Early on the hot water handle broke off of our shower. (Promptly reported to the manager, by the way...to no avail!) Not a problem, there was a little nub we could still turn with a pair of pliers. This worked great until the little nub broke off as well. More determined attempts to get the water to turn off resulted in the entire pipe bursting free of the tiled wall before a mighty spray of water. The water came out with such force that it filled the tub faster than it could drain. Scott stood directly in the deluge holding a towel against the renegade pipe with his knee to stem the flow while I ran and pounded on the manager's door to wake him up (it was about 6:30am). After about an hour the plumbers arrived and turned off the water. For the entire building. Because that was the only way to do it, you see. Sorry guys, I hope no one else needed to shower or use the bathroom this morning. Our complex was in "downtown" Rexburg and located over various shops and businesses. Our specific apartment was directly over the second hottest dance club in town. It was only open two nights a week, which was the good thing. The bad thing was that on those two nights we had to speak up to hear each other over the techno beats below us. Our floor vibrated. When the party place closed, the dancers most often planted themselves directly below our window to spend the rest of their night laughing and talking in nice loud voices.
This was the place where I attempted my first "real" recipes. (Like an entire pan of tater tot casserole, you know, for just the two of us.) This was the place where we learned together that you're not supposed to drain chicken fat into a mug and leave it out for a couple of days (the whole building remembers that smell). This was the place where the day we moved in we had a fight over a table until we realized we'd simply misunderstood each other. Here we enjoyed a nightly ritual of watching X-Files reruns together before bed. This was the place we invited our new married friends (can you believe we're married? can you believe we have married friends?) over to carve pumpkins. We celebrated the first of our birthdays together (it was Scott's. I gave him socks and a Matchbox 20 CD. I learned for the first time that he peeks at his gifts early! for shame). Here we got used to sharing a bathroom (with or without a working hot water handle). This was our first official address that we shared as Mr. and Mrs. This is the place where Scott learned that I'm cheap as can be and didn't see the point of turning on the floor-board heater when we were in bed (that's what covers are for!). I learned that having warm feet is invaluable to Scott and cannot be achieved with covers alone in Idaho winters with ice forming on our windows overnight. This was where Joel and Jenica saved our marriage by giving Scott an electric blanket for his birthday. This is the place where we learned through trial and error to rely on each other and carve out our new positions side by side. Where we willingly put off some aspects of who we used to be and got to work on being one instead. Our first apartment was pretty much perfect.

14 comments:

Sharlene, Mom, Grammy said...

You are a superb story-teller!! I can hardly wait for Part II. Loved every word---perfectly delivered! And what married couple can't relate to some part of that wonderful story? Well done, Lori Q. Cruze!

Jeanne said...

Love it! I don't which apartment # it was when you became our neighbors, but we sure love you guys!!

Jeanne said...

There should be an edit button.

I don't KNOW which apartment...

note to self: proof read!!

lisa said...

Great telling Lori! I think the only part I had heard before was the "scott needs warm feet and Lori was too stingy to care" part. So fun...Makes me think about our own newly married phase of life...

joelb said...

whoa, i remember the pliers but i'd forgotten about the burst pipe.

btw, what was the rent?

Erin said...

Lori, are you talking about College Square apartments? that was our first apartment too! fun times....one time our toilet wouldn't flush and when we finally got the maintenance people up to it, they pulled a nasty hairbrush out of it...a gift from our previous tenants. Great place. Shoulda been condemned, hope it has been by now.

Lori said...

Joel - I wish I could remember. I think around the $300 price range.
Erin - you guessed it, I didn't know you'd lived there too. What a gross but unsurprising hairbrush story!

Laura said...

ha love this story. it's fun to think about how things change overtime. Also, i loved watching the x-files reruns!!!

Anonymous said...

It's so hard to imagine you and Scott fighting. Even in the cute Nora-Ephron-movie, it-was-all-just-a-misunderstanding kind of way...

Brad said...

what a good writer you are Lori. Sad though that amid your stroll down memory lane you didn't mention joel jenica and I visiting for Thanksgiving and me barfing all weekend. How's *that* for a smell to remember??

Brad said...

By the way, the barber gene is still alive and well in me as well and it bit me in the butt today. I saved $3 (!) by going with the slowest delivery time for the business cards i needed for my trip tomorrow to nyc. A mere 7-13 days to arrive it said. Sadly, tomorrow, by which time i'll be on an airplane, is day 13 and they're still not here.

Unknown said...

Go check out the song Forever In Blue Jeans by Neil Diamond...he said it before you did....yet, you both were so artistically profound and great at pointing out something I have been trying to teach my husband who seems to be convinced that we can only have a good marriage when he makes a lot of money.

Unknown said...

The rent was $285. We got a $15 discount because we were on the side of the building where the dance club was :). Aaahhh our first shopping trips to Broulims...together, our humanities class together. And the dollar movie theater a block away. Going to the I.F. Temple every Saturday morning. Great days! The very best though, is that we were together. I love you!

Sarahie said...

Lori: I just found your blog! What took me so long? I don't know. I love that you shared this story. It gives some good perspective on early years of marriage and it shows that a lot of joy can be found despite our circumstances. I look forward to reading more!