homecoming II, the sequel

My husband is still in California, so part of my job in the new-home-procurement process is putting myself in his position and perceiving the apartment through his eyes, as though he were evaluating the place along with me.

Last night, I stretched out on the floor of the master bedroom and paid attention. Our building towers over the waterfront highway, and the traffic noise concerned me. Would it keep him awake?

Probably not, I concluded, since he's a big fan of white noise and loves to keep floor fans running in every room in our home. Even if the traffic itself didn't produce sufficiently comfortable white noise for him, it could certainly be masked with a floor fan. Or, for that matter, with the ocean-waves CD which my husband routinely sets to repeat throughout the night. The isolated motorcycle seemed to be the only real noise issue, and we have those even in Califo--

*whoooooosh* RRRRRRRM.

I sat up on the floor. What the hell?

Five minutes of due diligence, which I really had no excuse for not doing sooner, revealed that the twenty-eighth floor of this particular building was home not only to my apartment, but to two (2) loud humming whooshing elevator machine rooms. To enrich the situation even more, one of these machine rooms shared a wall with my master bathroom.

*whoooooosh* RRRRRRRM.

Even cranking the ocean waves would be useless here. There was no way my husband could sleep in this room.

I spent the night on a mattress (fortuitously borrowed from one of the building's leasing agents) in the middle room, which we had conceived to be my husband's office. Even there, the whooshing and humming was audible. "You were supposed to get us a livable place," groaned my husband over the cell phone. "Are you telling me that I can't live in this place??"

"Umm."

"I can't handle an argument about this right now."

"Me neither."

He swore.

"I'll talk to the leasing office in the morning," I said.

"And tell them what? That we're breaking our lease after twelve hours??"

"Umm."

I didn't sleep well, even after people stopped taking the elevator every five minutes.

But then, this morning, I got lucky.

I went to the leasing office, began to tell them that the elevator made too much noise, and found myself, to my horror, on the verge of tears. (At least it didn't happen during yesterday's deposition.) "Are there any other two-bedrooms available?" I finished before my voice completely broke. I felt my face flushing purple. Stupid, stupid! You need to negotiate, not whine!!

"I think...yes, let's check...oh, honey! Don't worry! It'll be OK!" said the motherly leasing agent, noticing my distress.

OK, maybe whining wasn't such a bad plan.

Long story short: tomorrow I will move my borrowed mattress and two suitcases from apartment 2804 up to apartment 3304, on a floor blessedly devoid of machine rooms. My rent will increase by $62 per month, my square footage by 200, and the number of electrical outlets in the office from 4 to the elusive 5. The traffic noises will attenuate over five more stories. And the elevators can hum and whoosh to their hearts' content, but I won't be able to hear them. (The leasing agent stood in the hallway and called them repeatedly to check while I listened in the bedroom. All clear.)

It's amusing to reflect on what suburbanites we have become, how spoiled we are for things like quiet and stairs and parking lots. Or maybe we've just been suburbanites all along.

thus spake /jca @ October 21, 2003 11:04 AM