(not) moving

Today was cleaning checks and move-out day in my apartment complex. Luckily for me, I'm staying in the same complex. Unluckily, I'm moving to a different unit. So I still have to do basically the same thing in terms of cleaning and packing. Luckily, it's a lot less stressful because I don't have to be out by a specific time, I can move any time in the next couple weeks that I want, and I don't really have to pack everything all that nicely since I'm just carrying it about 50 feet to my new apartment. But I still spent all day cleaning. And man, all I can say is, whoever's moving into my apartment is dang lucky. That place is sparkling. Really, it's too bad that I'm moving out of this apartment instead of into, because I can pretty much guarantee my new apartment won't be so clean. I kept asking myself why I was being so thorough.

"Self," I said, "why are you spending so much time cleaning when you're about to move out? Seriously, just get it clean enough to pass checks, and move on with your life. Save some of this cleaning energy to do a deep clean of your new place when you move in there, because you know it'll need it."

But it does feel good to do a good job. I know I like moving into a clean place that doesn't look like it's been grungifying unchecked for the past year. And I'm sure other people feel the same way. I wanted to leave my apartment nice for the next residents. So I scrubbed and swept and sudsed. I opened a brand new sponge this morning to do all my hardcore scrubbing--yeah, it's completely destroyed. Normally I'll have a sponge to clean dishes and counters for weeks (you just microwave it when it starts smelling funny--works wonders) before it starts wearing out. But this one's completely dying. But everything's so clean now! I even took all the shelves and stuff out of the refrigerator and scrubbed those. And cut myself on the handle to the oven door. However that works.

Anyway.

Sad story of the day. I can see my new apartment out the front windows, and I kept checking all day waiting for the old tenants to move out. I figured a pretty good indicator would be when they took their apartment sign off the door. But it never moved. And checkouts were at noon. So around 5 o' clock I called the office and asked what was up. Turns out that the people living there, unbeknownst to me, somehow got special permission to hang around till Thursday... drat drat drat. So I could technically move in, because there's a spot open, but I feel like that might be really awkward. And I kind of want to be able to pick the spot I want, not take the only available one. So I may just hold off on moving. Providing, of course, that the electricity in my current apartment does not shut off. Which might happen. And now all my cleaning and boxing was for nothing, and things are just going to get dirty again while I don't move. Grrr.

It was all rather interesting though. I played lots of music. Including Elvis. Which is rather a strange experience for me. And after you've been cleaning by yourself for a few hours, you start doing strange things, like have mental conversations with your questionable bag of potatoes. So as I was sorting (sniffing) my bag of potatoes, my thought process went something like this:

"Right, now, those of you that smell like potatoes get to go back in the bag. Those of you that don't (aka: reek of nasty horrible moldering potato stink) will be unceremoniously thrown into the rubbish."

Good times.