Last Chance

Day 4 - Friday: Glimmers of Hope

(Part One: The Hunt Begins)

(Part Two: The Hunt Continues)

Friday morning we skipped the continental breakfast--as tempting as toast and jam is--and went to the diner next door.  Before leaving the hotel for the last time, I checked craigslist and managed to find an open house in the Mission for the afternoon and schedule one last appointment for the early evening in Noe Valley.  Over brunch, I called  James to check the status of our application.  He said only that he would look into it and call me back.  Progress . . . I thought.

Meanwhile we had decided to chance it and turn down the apartment that was offered to us the day before.  JSze considered telling the guy that it was a crappy place in a crappy neighborhood, was offensively blue, and didn't have laundry as a list of reasons why, but in the end, we decided it best just to say we went with something else and leave it at that.

A couple hours after brunch, we received a call from the agent representing the huge, awesome, and laundry-less flat that we saw the evening before.  She offered us the place, but we were reluctant to accept and told her we'd make a decision by night-fall.  She asked what we had reservations about and we told her that basically we were too lazy to carry our laundry half a mile to a cleaner up and down hill, but otherwise the place was great.  She understood and said she'd talk to the owner to see if we could use the machines in the house.  Apparently the previous tenant was a family who used the machines so much that the owner didn't get easy access to his own machines, thereby angering him and screwing things up for future tenants.  This is why people shouldn't have families.

In any case, the conversation sounded promising since she seemed determined to get us to rent it.  That gave us a renewed confidence in the process and made us feel good about rejecting the crappy, offensively blue apartment in the crappy neighborhood without laundry.  And we sat on the hope that James would come through in the end, making our trip end on a high not.  

In the mean time, we killed time at the Embarcadero by the waterfront, waiting for the phone to ring, checking craigslist, metrorent, and the ladies that walked by (well, I did that--not going to speak with JSze because I wouldn't want him to get in trouble with MHK).  In any case not much of note except another open house around 7 pm at night in the Noe area.  Then it was time to go to the Mission.  MHK would head back to the mall where she spent the majority of her time while we were there.

The 2 bedroom we were checking out in the Mission was going for $2195/mo.  It was on the corner of a very busy commercial street, and waiting outside the gate was at least 20 people.  Finally, the agent shows up and lets us all in to look.  The apartment was . . . "cozy."  Very small, cellular in organization, no windows in the kitchen.  There were creaky, hardwood floors, ancient appliances in the kitchen and a rustic looking bathroom.  Unsure of whether or not we'd want to live there, we grabbed an application and said we'd fill it out and return it later.  We didn't.

Disappointed yet again, we headed to Noe Valley.  Taking a scenic route with several hills, I thought about how great my legs would look living in the Valley.  And then I thought how much I hated walking up hills and would probably just take public transit everywhere and maybe my legs wouldn't look so great after all.  Either way, I needed to sit down.  We had a couple hours to kill before the open house and we were a little hungry anyways so JSze and I found a little pub and had a burger.  Fully satiated, we paid our bill and had a few more blocks to walk--fortunately it was down hill.  We got to the flat a little early and waited.

It turns out we weren't the only ones scheduled to be there.  A guy in a suit was the first to stop and wait in the area.  I thought about how that might be perceived by the owner: Should I rent the unit out to the wearing the suit or these two riff-raffs in tennis shoes who appear to be carrying their life on their backs?  

"Maybe we should push him in front of the street car," JSze muttered.

"Yeah," I replied, "He can't fill out an application if he's dead."

Apartment hunting brings out the menace in people, I think.  Soon, others would arrive as well, making it incredibly difficult to devise ways to make people disappear without it looking suspicious.  The owner finally arrived and we immediately went into attack mode.  Which means we made sure she knew the important facts about us.

Owner: "So you guys are moving from where?"

Me: "Boston"

Owner: "What brings you to San Francisco?"

Me: "We just got our Master's Degree in Architecture and got a job with an international design firm downtown"

Owner: "Wow, what school?"

Me (Smiling): "Harvard."

Yep, she was impressed.  In fact after we filled out the application, she told us we had her vote, but she needed to talk to her husband first about it.  So we felt pretty confident about that.

The apartment itself wasn't bad. Not the greatest place, but certainly one of the top 3 that we had seen.  We would definitely take it if she offers it, we decided.  The layout was a little awkward:  a long hallway on the right side connecting all the rooms; living room in the front, kitchen in the back, and 2 bedrooms + bathroom between.  Out back was a small deck and a little backyard garden.  Down stairs was laundry!  That definitely was exciting--especially since it wasn't coin operated.  As far as the faults, the place was relatively old-looking still, and a little bit further out than we'd like.  Aside from that, it was definitely livable.  After schmoozing a little more, we left feeling confident that we might get offered the place.  At that point, James still hadn't called back, and neither had the agent from the flat in Sunset.  

There was still one more open house left and we debated whether or not we should go.  We were exhausted and certainly tired of filling out those blasted applications.  But, it was just up the road--towards town and a bit closer to work.  What the Hell, we thought, might as well look at it.

The location was great--just two blocks north of the main commercial strip, right on the J-line which would take us straight to work.  But it was only 6:00pm and we had to wait an hour before the open house officially started in order to see the inside--or so we thought.  After about 30 minutes, the owner actually came outside to greet us.  And since we were the only ones there, we got a personal tour.  This place was fantastic.  Hardwood floors, a decent amount of space, brand new kitchen counters and appliances, walls were newly painted, and the bathroom looked polished as well.  We loved it.  Instantly.  

Again, we did our thing and talked to the landlord.  I complimented his remodeling job and we were all smiles.  He seemed a bit tense to start, but after a few minutes of background banter we had the guy chuckling and making dry remarks.  People were slowly starting to trickle in to the open house, but we didn't lose his attention.  In fact after expressing a great amount of interest in the place, he told us to give him a call at 8:30 that night and he'd have an answer for us--we didn't even fill out an application.  We simply handed him our packet of information and answered a few questions he had.  As we made our exit, I saw several people standing on the porch waiting to get in.  I almost felt sorry for them, feeling in my gut that we had essentially signed a contract already.

Between the time we left and 8:30pm, I don't think I've ever felt the minutes go by so slowly.  And still no word from James.  Screw James.  But then, at 8:22pm, I heard Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."  It was my phone, and it was a 415 number.  The owner of the flat we just looked at called: "I want to offer you guys the apartment."  I wanted to say "I love you," but feared that in San Francisco, that may be misconstrued.  But I did say that we'd love to take the apartment--and we did.

That night I would enjoy my first meal without anxiety, sleep without the fear of being homeless in the coming weeks, and drink in celebration instead of despair.  

Day Five - Saturday: Happy

The next morning we signed the lease, wrote checks for large sums of money, and smiled . . . a lot.  Afterwards, we decided to head to the coffee and pastry shop at the corner: Happy Donuts.  There, behind the counter, was an amazingly beautiful girl.  Here I was, in my future neighborhood, and not a 2 minute walk away from the new apartment were two of my most favorite things on Earth: a hot girl and baked goods. 

 I ordered a donut . . . a very Happy Donut.