Household traumas: a story with a hopefully happy ending

The funny thing about life is that if one small change comes infrequently, you tend to give it weight which is entirely unjustified. But when you make one massive change, all the other changes which follow from there, even if they are exponentially greater than the little changes mentioned before, don't faze you at all. This is the way it is for me now, where suddenly decisions like where I'm going to stay for the next year or so of my life suddenly just doesn't seem like a huge deal, it's just something that needs to be done.

For the last few days, Slinky has been looking for some place to rest her head.

After the to-ing and fro-ing of the terribly inefficient student accommodation services, I decided that rather than let my living situation be held hostage by people who don't understand the concept of working past 4:30 (4:30!!!!!), I'd do some pavement pounding myself, which mainly consisted of some frantic net-surfing and becoming a daily devotee of the school's notice boards.

Some advertisements have inherent red flags all over them. Take the one where a young, professional couple with no kids offered to waive the rent in exchange for some 'light household work' being done. Read: live-in maid. Sorry, Slinky ain't gonna be no one's little Asian slave-girl (except maybe The Boy's, and only on special occasions).

Then there are the ones were they say 'fun-loving uni students'. All five of them, sharing a small house. Read: drunk mad Americans who will party every night and wear your favorite ribboned thong on their heads (we've covered this particular horror before, I believe).

After sieving through the maybe, hell-nos and not-even-if-you-paid-mes, I got a list of reasonable prospects and made appointments.

The first house I viewed nearly had me saying 'yes' right away.

I made an appointment, consulted my trusty street directory (the gift that keeps giving, thanks cuz!) and launched myself into the wilds of some place which promised to be '5 minutes walk from the university'. How hard could it be?

Naturally I got hopelessly lost anyway and ended up calling the nice boy who shared the place with his brother. As far as I could tell, I was stuck arse-end nowhere where the bus stops consisted of one lonely bench planted in the dust and a little pole sticking out the ground which told me excitedly to "Hail bus!", with absolutely no indication of what bus it was that I was supposed to be hailing. They were terribly sweet and actually drove out to rescue me, which earned them a gazillion brownie points.

It was a pretty little place, close to the uni (but more like ten minutes hard walking rather than five), with a little garden, a long driveway, shady trees, and (another gazillion brownie points) a little half-indoor pond, and two very friendly little dogs. And an arowana in a huge glass tank. And a carton of Mild Seven ciggies sitting on top of it.

There was another girl who was there to view the place, this black chick who looked a little bemused. We smiled at each other in the way lions look at other lions over a dead deer. Then the little doggies came charging out from the laundry room where they had been confined, and she flinched away with an "eeeek" grimace while I squealed with pleasure ("Oooohhhhh, hello baby! Oh, you're so CUTE!). Ha. I win.

They would have given me the place right then and there "because you're Asian", they said (Manjen power!) and because they quite liked me. And I nearly said yes, save for the fact that room which would be mine was postage-stamp-sized even if it was airy and pretty, and also because I didn't feel an instant 'click' with them, even though they did seem terribly sweet. If you're going to be sharing living space with someone 24/ you had damned well like them or else someone's going to be found dead in his room stabbed 107 times with the butter knife one cold morning.

So I told them I had to look around a bit more, but at present, their place was the top of my list (so it was the first place I saw, it's still not lying).

My next place turned out to be run by this Indonesian woman who had crammed in four other students and herself into a large two-storey house. The room was huge compared to the one which was being shared by the two Malaysians, and it came with an ensuite bathroom. No wireless internet connection.

She bugged me though. Talking to her was a little bit like biting tinfoil.

And when I asked her about her views on having people over, she told me that she preferred it if I only had people in the common areas, and no one up in my room. I had visions of having to surreptitiously shag The Boy behind the shrubs in the garden in the middle of winter, puffy jackets on the grass, twigs poking at my bum and deadly funnel web spiders preparing to launch themselves down from the frozen branches like venomous coitus interruptus parachutists. No thank you. No point having that nice big ensuite room if I don't actually get to use it.

Then there was the post-grad student's place (very nice, but expensive as hell), the Singaporean student's place and the place near the place I got lost at enroute to the Malaysians' house.

Two trips to the notice boards later, I saw a simple advertisement which said "22 year old girl with friendly little dog looking for roommate." I took a tag.

Normally I would have given up. I called three times over two days becasue she wasn't picking up. And I lost the little tag thing twice before I finally got hold of her. When I finally made an appointment to see the place, it turned out to be really far away. (But god bless the street directory, for the first time in days I didn’t get lost). Funny thing though, soemthing said "go see it", so I did.

I had some serious doubt on my way to the house. The bus passed industrial estates and some seriously dead scrub. And when I got off the bus I felt like talking to Toto ala Dorothy after she'd been deposited in Oz, re: "We aren't in Kansas any more”.

But the minute I got into the house, I was charmed. A very excited bichon frise came running out to say hello, and the girl in question turned out to be a cheerful, friendly Australian who's also studying at the same university. When I sat down, the little dog climbed onto my lap and leaned against me, black button eyes gazing adoringly at me.

The rooms were spacious and airy, with huge French windows all over the house so that natural light came streaming in. The furniture was new and colorful and comfortable, with lots of light wood and pretty little touches. The bedrooms were large and comfortable, and there was warm wood flooring throughout the house. The house felt like a home, something which had been missing from the othe places I had seen. To cap it all off, there was an enormous backyard which I could imagine Tesh going mad in (she could have galloped around full-tilt easily instead of smashing into the fence like she sometimes does back home) and flowers planted in a border next to the fence. There was a lake and a nature reserve right outside the doorstep.

We got to talking, and to my deep pleasure, she turned out to be one of those people with whom there is an instant connection. Without any intial awkwardness, you find yourself babbling happily away and before you know it an hour's passed.

I decided then and there to forget about the rest of the places I was supposed to see after this and try and convince her to take me. It was a lot easier than I thought, because she was tired of looking for a housemate too, and told me "You're one of the nicest people I’ve met so far!"

Likewise.

She adors dogs too and has a penchant for taking in strays (++!!) has a brother/cousin who's a polcieman with a huge Alaskan Malamute (+++!!) and friends who all have dogs (+++++!!) And she likes snakes! (+++++++++++!!)

So we agreed to live together, marking a definite change for the better in Slinky's fortunes.

On my way out, I discovered that she has all the episodes of all the seasons of Buffy and Angel.

Let's say that again to emphasize the importance of this fact.

She has ALL. The episodes. Of Buffy. And Angel.

"It's a SIGN!" I yelled at my surprised soon-to-be housemate.
"Oh, you like it too? Great! Then I don't have to explain my tastes in TV!" she beamed.

The only way I could have scripted it better was if the dog had been a GSD.

I move in this afternoon. I can't wait.

PS: picture of my dinner has been uploaded for my previous post.