a list of some of the gross things happening in my apartment recently

1.) I just cut my hair for the first time. I used my kitchen scissors, the Chicago Cutlery ones I got last Black Friday at Walmart. They’re the sharpest ones I own. I didn’t even rinse them off before I put them back in their wooden block. I usually get the cheapest haircut I can find, almost always at Walmart, but funds are dwindling during my student teaching, and I’m too tired to drive all the way to walmart this morning. It’s been over a year since my last haircut.

2.) Connor sprained his ankle at the gym and spent more time looking up what kind of sprain he thinks it might be than doing the dishes. He finally got around to the dishes on Friday, but they’d been building up all week. The smell was unbearable, and I think the main culprit was the pan full of hamburger grease that’s been sitting undisturbed since Monday.

3.) Also due to Connor’s sprained ankle, which he only told me about later: the thing with the potato chip bag and the giant spider. It’s kind of like James and the giant peach, with all those human child-sized bugs running around, but with an adult man and a spider he brought inside our apartment on his body. He was limping from his car after hurting himself at the gym and so didn’t notice the spiderweb when he walked through it. He felt the spider crawling on his shoulder and didn’t want to kill it, so he scooped it up on the nearest piece of garbage he could find and dropped it outside.

4.) Our trash can is perpetually full. We’ve lived here for two years, and we’ve never had an empty trash can. As soon as garbage leaves, the stupid thing magically fills back up. This nightmare also smells.

5.) The chili containers from Wendy’s are building up. I have been living on school lunches, turkey sandwiches on toasted frozen bread, and Wendy’s chili for weeks. This is due to the reasons outlined in my first point, the thing about the haircut.

6.) The inside of our toilet bowl has changed colors. You know how they usually get mildewy and that means you have to clean them? Well, we were past due at the point when school started back up, and then all the college kids came back into town. I’ve gotten groceries four or five times since then, and today was the first day that the shelves weren’t completely wiped clean of the very specific toilet cleaner we use. (We have this wand that requires these special heads that come preloaded with cleaner. This is not what I would have chosen, but Connor was in charge of that, so we’re committed now.) We still haven’t cleaned it though.