To clear up any confusion about the order of events: My parents departed on Wednesday, August 22, my mother heading south, first to Bochum to visit Romi (former Mohawk Airlines co-hort), then Tutzing, where her delighted childhood friends have, as always, swallowed her whole. My father heads farther south, to Italy, where he is designing a garden for his filthy rich client (and thank God for the filthy rich).
Last Wednesday was also my moving day. I taxi-ed my smaller suitcase and backpack through relentless rain to my sublet on Bänchstrasse.
A word about the sublet: Not so much.
Oh, that's three words.
It belongs to F., a half-Peruvian 22-year-old, who's visiting family in Chile for two months. She's a student of Spanish and English, though in her soul she's a dancer: Latin street style, she told me. Her heart is good. Her apartment is...tacky.
So sue me, I have taste. If you met my parents, you would understand. When God doled out style, he gave Mom and Pops three generation's worth.
There is a seashell theme to F.'s bathroom. The sand-colored toilet seat is dotted with painted seashells. Knotted strings of shells hang everywhere, from the ceiling, from the mirror to the cabinet, from the opposite wall. A sailboat whose sail consists of more knotted strings of shells rests on a shelf. A bowl of sand holds a few more. Not found shells, mind you — the chipped, one-of-a-kind treasures you or I might pocket in Montawk — but purchased shells. Could have rolled off an assembly line.
The hall's stucco walls are plastered with photos of friends and family. Collaged sorority-girl style. The girl is 22, I'll give her that. But the screensaver on the computer? Endlessly overlapping photos of half-clad girls: Hot or Not? You Vote!
Living room decor: Fake red rose in vase. Fake sunflowers in vase. Fake palm tree (!) in pot.
This was the poster on the bedroom door:
Not that I am opposed to that sort of activity, but, I'm sorry, I had to take it down.
Now that you all think I'm a heartless snob...onward.
The furniture, cheap as Barbie's Dreamhouse. The desk drawer is wedged in sideways — something wrong with the tracks.
The purty plastic toilet seat slides to the right every time I sit (fine, blame my big butt). Turn the water in the shower off, and the shower head goes swiveling out of its hook and crashing to the floor. When I open the bathroom cabinet's glass door, the whole thing jerks forward. One of these days it's going to pin me to the wall. The sliding doors on the bedroom wardrobe don't want to budge. On my first day, I lay a pair of jeans on a lower shelf, and the board promptly fell to the bottom.
Still, what's been worst? The smell.
Fake fruity. Scratchy sweet. Toxic, don't doubt.
F. has a washing machine in the kitchen. Before she left, she washed ALL her towels and sheets, for my sake, and remade the bed and the sofas. (Nice, yes. But being in a rush, she used still damp sheets. Even nicer.) The rest she left hanging on the drying rack in the hall (no dryer). On Tuesday, when my parents and I dropped off the monster-case, I immediately threw open all the windows. Wednesday, when I returned, the place was no more aired out. I paced the hall, folding the now-dry sheets, shoving them wherever I found space, going, What is that smell?! Strangely, I could not stop smelling it; my nose would not adapt.
It wasn't until I did my own load Wednesday night that I figured it out. Oh, hello Mr. Clean. Make that, Herr Clean. I poured the neon blue liquid out of his head and into the washing machine. Afterward I laid my wet pants and shirts on the racks and got ready for bed. The air was steeped in that chemical scent. I thought I might erstick.
I placed all the clothes back in the washing machine, then soaked and rattled them in water-only for hours more. (Maybe if I could decipher the mysterious German washing machine symbols, I wouldn't go running it for hours. If someone, anyone, please, could tell me what that labyrinthine swirl is, and that showerhead thingy, and that T-shirt with the raindrops...) Then I laid them out to dry all over again.
Six days in and finally the smell seems to be abating. Not so for the fridge. I thought maybe it was the potato pancakes in the freezer. Maybe the plastic bag in which I kept my acidopholus pills. Maybe the open butter package. I threw it all away.
Still it smells. Everything I take out of it smells too. I bite into an apple from the crisping shelf, and it has that slightly rotting taint. There is nothing bad in that fridge, I tell you. Must be something went rancid once and now wants F. (and her subletter) to remember for all eternity the mistake she made.
That about covers it. Oh, except, this is what a clean towel looks like:
Don't make me touch it.
Oh that is so disappointing. yuck! And dahling, you are definitely not a snob, just honest.
Posted by: Angel | August 28, 2007 at 09:49 AM
Phew. I was afraid someone with a seashell-themed bathroom was going to read this and disown me forever. ;-)
Posted by: Lilan | August 28, 2007 at 01:02 PM
oh, lilan, i'm soooo sorry! i am the reigning princess of clean and tidy around here; i am really feeling for you! i couldn't stand it! any hope of change?
-jess
Posted by: jess | August 28, 2007 at 03:50 PM
ooof! not the digs I was hoping you'd score for your Berlin sojurn. If I may make one suggestion: Spend the bucks to buy a new toilet seat. I lived for years with one that slid to the side, and it's not worth the pain compared to the cost of a new one -- and I consider myself an authority on your butt as well, which is quite lovely and far far far from oversized, so I'm sure it's not your fault. New seats are pretty cheap, not tough to install. I'm guessing hers has a broken plastic hinge at the back. Just a thought. I wish I could come and fix the whole place for you! Although, the seashells seem to be the least of the problem. Raining t-shirt=don't cry for me argentina=delicates load?
Posted by: Julie | August 28, 2007 at 04:56 PM
It's at least clean, though it might not meet your standards. ;-) Just tacky. Tito got totally depressed. He was like, you must move right away. I think I can handle it till October though. Then I'm hoping for a JEWEL of a place.
Posted by: Lilan | August 29, 2007 at 05:26 AM