Comedy of Errors

By Elise Nuding

Have you ever been involved in a comedy of errors? Like the Shakespeare play that coined the phrase, my own comedy of errors involved a mistaken identity (however, unlike the play, it didn’t feature two sets of identical twins in Ancient Greece). Instead—and arguably more absurdly—it took place in a retirement home.

I was visiting an elderly friend of the family for a few days and had decided to take advantage of the exercise facilities located in the community.  It was a holiday weekend with a number of families visiting, and to celebrate my day off work, I had just undergone my bi-monthly routine of trimming and thinning out my already short hair so that it was cropped very close to my head. I was enjoying this freshly-cut-hair feel as I headed down to the exercise room, wearing athletic shorts and an old t-shirt that hung loosely on my petite frame.

The only other person in the exercise room was an elderly lady leisurely using the recumbent cycle—one of those bicycles that you pedal a laid-back, reclining position. After a swift, but intense, mental battle over whether to go for the treadmill or the exercise bike, I headed towards the latter (it won over the treadmill by a narrow margin of less effort required). I started pedalling, and moments in I heard her saying somewhat imperiously,

“Excuse me, young man”

The “young man” did not reply, and her tone became more insistent.

“Young man…young man…excuse me, young man, I am talking to you!”

I smiled to myself, wondering what this “young man” had done to earn her displeasure. It took me a further ten seconds of this scolding to realise, “Oh my gosh…she’s talking to me!” I slowed to a stop, and turned towards her. From across the room, still leisurely reclining and peddling away, she addressed me:

“Young man, you should know that only persons of eighteen years of age or older may use these exercise machines.” She pointed to a sign next to her.

With no idea how to respond, all I could manage was, “Er…”

She peered at me (still pedalling). “Oh. You’re not a young man at all…but the age requirement still stands, I’m afraid.”

Sometimes people have an amazing way of being completely unabashed. So she had realised that I was not, in fact, a “young man”, but was still under the impression that I was younger than eighteen. To be fair, age can be a tricky thing to estimate, and when you are wearing shapeless workout clothes it can further muddy the matter. But her complete lack of embarrassment about the gender misperception, and conviction that she had accurately assessed my age was, nevertheless, rather impressive.

I couldn’t decide whether I was offended, embarrassed, highly amused, or just taken aback by her brazenness. Highly amused won out, and fighting the impulse to laugh, I adopted the time-tested strategy of using politeness to dispel awkward situations. I smiled and joked that my grandmother was always telling me my haircut makes me look like a boy, and that now she had proof. Then I told her I was actually in my twenties, but I thanked her for pointing out the sign because I had not seen it, and would now make sure to tell any teenagers who showed up that they should not be using the equipment. She was unfazed, and her legs continued to work steadily away at the recumbent bike. I resumed my pedalling, and all I could think was, “Yup. That really just happened.”

Crash Diet

By Katie McCollow

There’s no excuse this year, I know, what with our strangely balmy winter and beautiful, blue-skied spring; as a matter of fact, an argument could be made that this year, Mother Nature was all but screaming at me:  “Stop digging through the cream cheese with your fingers! You have to put some shorts on soon!”

Did I listen? Of course not. I have only myself to blame. I don’t listen to my actual mother nearly enough, why would I listen to a woman who got fooled into thinking a tub of margarine was butter (ridiculously out-dated pop-culture reference alert!)?

Just like every December 23^rd I have nary a present purchased, every year Memorial Day lands on me like a giant anvil. A giant anvil made of thigh fat.

The magazine headlines in the mailbox warned me: “Beach weather is but 10 weeks away!”  “Blast your belly fat in time for sundress season!”  “The thought of you in a tank top makes Jillian Michaels vomit!” and so forth.

I glanced at them in March while I waited for the girl to ring up my ice cream. Ten weeks sounded like such a long time, eight weeks ago.

But now, here we are…the dreaded count-down to summer. Which crash diet will I fail at this year?

A friend of mine just finished the HCG diet, in which one ingests a hormone women produce during pregnancy and then eat no more than 500 calories a day for a month.

My sister is doing a liquid cleanse; she has to drink several glasses of a vile-smelling potion that makes her highly flatulent…and eat no more than 500 calories a day. For a month.

Is it just me, or does the hormone-taking and vile-drink drinking seem extraneous? Eat less than 500 calories a day and you’re going to lose weight, right? You’ll probably loss your mind, your job, all of your hair and most of your friends, too, but at least you’ll be thin.

Years ago, the book “Fit for Life” was really popular. The guy who wrote it had lots of rules for eating; only certain foods at certain times of the day, no carbs with meat, etc. There was also an entire page in the book with the words “DO NOT OVEREAT” typed across it again and again. Well, elementary, me dear Watson. If I could do that, I wouldn’t need your book. That goes double for plans like Slim-Fast; you’re allowed to eat one of those delicious, chocolaty candy bars per day. If I had that kind of control, I wouldn’t need help.

Have you heard of Sensa? It’s a powder you shake onto your food so you eat less of it. I can think of lots of things people could shake on their food so they wont eat it…Comet cleanser, yard mulch, baby powder, dead flies collected from window sills, heck, why not really scare someone straight and use rat poison?  You just have to make sure to tell them first. We don’t anyone going to prison over a few extra pounds.

It’s getting late…I wonder if there’s any cream cheese left?

I’ve still got two weeks.

A Not-So-Ordinary Saturday Night

By Billy Hall

Last week’s Saturday night, May 06, 2012 was supposedly just like any other Saturdays except for a spectacular night sky view. The moon’s size and luminosity made that night more special and dramatic than ever for most people, including myself. Every year, this phenomenon nicknamed as “supermoon” is somehow expected to occur, astronomers said. As one of the passionate sky watchers, I patiently and eagerly waited for the sun to set. Unfortunately for us in our country, it’s not at that very moment the supermoon appeared. After 6 more hours from 6 pm, the moon came 221,457 miles closer from our planet Earth, allowing us to see Luna (moon) in her extra large size and extra luminosity. Its usual distance from our planet is 221,457 miles during the ordinary nights. There she was, the supermoon, gracefully rising above the peculiar hazy clouds and dark night sky. Seeing supermoon that night was breathtaking and worth the wait. It would blow your mind with some questions afterwards. How was it possible for the moon to appear bigger and brighter?

I can assure you of that because the only thing that’s brought by supermoon was an inspiring thought in my head that in those rare moments, people from different corners in the world are watching the moon’s immensity and glamour in awe, saying “this has got to be once in a blue moon”. In less than few hours after the supermoon appeared, captivating photos that captured the spectacular night sky views taken in different parts of the world have flooded throughout the internet. No other celestial view can be as breathtaking, as dramatic and as romantic than seeing the supermoon rise above New York City’s skyline, and behind the statue of the Ancient Greek Goddess, Athena in Greece. Supermoon was captured rising behind Temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounion, Greece with its brightly lit sky, far above the skies in Honolulu, Hawaii, beneath the Golden Bridge in San Francisco and over the Pacific Ocean seen from Sydney Australia. The appearance of supermoon last Saturday was simultaneous with the Buddhists’ celebration of Vesak Day, Buddha’s birth, death and enlightenment. With this, Buddhist in Indonesia released sky lanterns on the night sky during a procession to honor Vesak Day. Supermoon can be seen in the background, gracefully complementing the lanterns as they fly.

Next year, it has been estimated that supermoon will approach Earth farther than it has this year. But I’m sure we’ll all be waiting still for supermoon to appear!

Saving a Dollar at the Expense of…What?

By Katie McCollow

Several weeks ago, I got stuck behind a woman at Target whose bill totaled $1200.00. She handed over a giant box of coupons, and after about a half an hour of the clerk running them through the scanner, her bill was down fewer than 200 bucks. The clerk looked like he was going to cry.

“What in the world?” I thought/questioned. “I want a piece of that action! I want to make a clerk fear for his job after I’ve come through the line! I want in.”

I watched shows about people who saved so much money couponing, they retired to Tahitian villas and hired manservants to feed them off solid gold plates.

I read websites about couponers who had to rent extra storage space and buy multiple deep-freezers and U-hauls to accommodate all the Axe body spray and Green Giant frozen vegetables they got for free. For free.  But how to do it? Double the what? Stack the what?? Send in the what? Help!

“I know! I’ll have a party,” I thought. “People have parties for all sorts of reasons. Why, there are candle parties and makeup parties and cleaning parties.   I’ll have a party where I invite some friends to my apartment to listen to a couponing expert who will teach us all the secrets and special code words of the couponing world! I’m a genius!”

You know how they say if you think you’re crazy, you’re probably not actually crazy? I believe that goes double for thinking you’re a genius—literally in my case–I once got so caught up in an on-line
Mensa test, I was late for work.

Anyway, I calmed down and realized that sounded about as fun as an advanced calculus party (no offense to those of you who enjoy advanced calculus in your free time).

I still want to save money, but let’s get real, I don’t have time to be driving all over town to save two dollars, nor do I have the space for an extra deep freezer or case of Axe body spray. And I don’t have any friends. That was a joke. I have plenty of room for a deep freezer. My point is, I decided to wade in slowly and not immediately try to get cast on the next episode of Extreme Couponing.

I bought a Sunday paper. I clipped out a dozen coupons from three different stores in reasonable proximity to each other, and set aside the afternoon for my shopping trip.

In store number one, I got the hairy eyeball from an old man parked right in front of the nutrition bars, for which I had a 2-for-1. There were literally 2 bars left. His message was clear: Beat it, sister. I’ve been doing this since you were knee high to a grasshopper and I got here first. So I didn’t get those, but I did score a 48-pack of Claritin with a 5 dollar off coupon. 5 dollars off! That’s impressive. If only I had allergies, I’d have been feeling pretty smug.

In store number two, I got all the items I had coupons for, then had the embarrassing experience of realizing in the check-out lane I had 2 bags of Oreos, a jumbo pack of toilet paper and a bottle of 409. All the makings for a festive Sunday evening.

I never made it to store number three, because I left the coupons for it on my kitchen counter.

I’ll keep trying, but obviously there are some bugs I need to work out of the system.

The Million-Dollar Question

By Katie Peterson

Have you ever imaginatively played the lottery?

You know what I’m talking about.  You’re sitting around with your friends on a Friday night, having a glass of wine, and someone asks you what you’d do with a million dollars if it magically showed up on your doorstep.

Let’s play right now.

What would you do with the money?

Would you invest it?

Would you spend it all on luxurious items and exotic vacations?

Would you give it all away?

Your answer is telling in two ways. First, it brings to light your deepest desires. Second, it has the capacity to shed some serious light on your current relationship with money.

If you end your list of desires with, “Yeah, but I’d never win the lottery,” you have some serious doubt associated with your experience with money.

Okay, so maybe it seems a little far-fetched to think you’d actually win the lottery, but how do you know unless you play?

This same principle applies to your life.  Are you taking chances in your life, going for what you really want, or are you passively accepting your circumstances for what they are?  In other words, are you actually buying the lottery ticket, or are you just thinking about it?

Here’s something else to think about.

Studies show that just because you win the lottery, it doesn’t mean you’re set for life.

It’s true.  Recent findings in The Review of Economics and Statistics show that a big lottery win doesn’t decrease your chances of having to file for bankruptcy.

What? Why?

Because that’s how strong old patterns are.

If you grew up in scarcity, you’re going right back to scarcity unless you’ve changed your mindset.  Old limiting money patterns and beliefs will bring you right back to where you started – because you still buy into them.  No amount of money can change that. You have to go in and change the belief from the inside out.

Scarcity type thinking and fear of loss (which can also be common among the wealthy, as the more you have, the more you have to lose), can lead you to live life according to what money can do for you, instead of what you can do with the money.

Many people experience money from a place of fear. It’s a powerless place to be.  It’s also backwards, because we created money!

Shouldn’t you be the one deciding what to do with your money according to how you want to live your life, instead of letting it tell you what to do?  You probably think about what you do have, instead of what you could have, and this limits you.

Expand your horizons.  Really think about the million-dollar question again, and get clear.

You can’t get what you want if you don’t know what you want!

Some of the wealthiest people in the world find money wherever they go.  Why?

Because they expect it.

If they lose it all, they know they’ll get it back.

That’s a powerful knowing.

Apply this same principle to your life.  Know you can have whatever you want in life, but there’s one caveat.

You have to believe it’s possible.

The 4-10-150 Rule

I recently learned about this intriguing thing called the 4-10-150 rule as I was considering how social marketing impacts apartment living and renting. I know at least a little bit about social marketing, so I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of this phenomenon. I also know a thing or two about rules (and breaking them), so again, I was surprised I hadn’t heard of this one. Or broken it yet.

Anyway, it goes like this: at the most basic level, there are four people that you talk to everyday who have a tremendous impact on you. You consult them about everything – from whether or not you should buy a shirt to whether or not you should buy a house, get engaged, quit your job, or make any other major life decision. You might not even pick out navel lint without talking to them first. These four folks are, essentially, your inner circle.

In fact, if we’re thinking about this deal as a sort of planets-orbiting-the-sun kind of thing (with you, naturally, as the sun), then your first four people are where Mercury would be. Gets a little hot there – sometimes they get a little scorched (especially if you are me). But they are intrinsic to how your life unfolds because they’re the ones closest to you. So, you’ve got four Mercuries (Mercurys?).

Next, you’ve got ten people that comprise your second circle of friends/relatives/ maniacs. These are people you talk to a lot – but probably not every day – and they also have a tremendous amount of influence over you – though not to as great a degree as your Mercuries (Mercurys). For example, you might go ahead and pick navel lint without consulting them, but you might talk about how it went with them later. I’m guessing that for most people, these ten are comprised of friends and relatives who are also friends (yes, this does exist).

So, if you’re the sun and you’ve got four Mercuries (Mercurys), then these next ten people are circling you at your Venus orbit. They are your Venuses (Veni?). The Venus orbit is still pretty hot – nothing lives there because it’s like nine-hundred-thousand-bazillion degrees under the clouds, but things are not as bad as they are in the Mercury orbit. I’d venture to say that the Venus level can be a slightly more poisonous environment, but not as hot. That is to say, you’re not in the hot seat as often.

The remaining 150 make up your third circle – meaning they’re orbiting you at your Earth level. These 150 Earthlings are people you know, whose advice and ideas you’ll at least listen to, if not fully consider. Earthlings are friends of a more casual quality – some friendly acquaintances, maybe coworkers, and others of a less-than-intimate-but-not-unfamiliar status. This is a wide category – you’ve got Earthlings of all kinds orbiting you and it’s far too much to expect that you’d listen to all of them, so you only value their input to a certain degree. They don’t need to know or hear about any lint-picking activities.

And the rest? Your Marsies, Jupiterites, Saturnlings, Urani, Neptunites, and Plutolings are all out there too, but they don’t really matter to you. You don’t even bother to read their facebook updates. In fact, you probably block the Urani and Neptunites from your news feed and consider unfriending the Plutolings altogether.

So, I applied this curious 4-10-150 idea to my life and found that it mostly fits. I always feel like I have more people than allotted at each level (especially my Venus and my Earth orbits), but I think I’m just kidding myself. On the whole, this rule seems to be true.

Basically, the people who made up this 4-10-150 thing are telling us that we just don’t have that many friends. And that, as I understand it, is the rule of thumb for social marketing.

The Zipper Merge

You’re probably thinking that the so-called “Zipper Merge” of latent television commercial fame isn’t exactly a rental or leasing topic. You’re probably right about that. But I justify my selection with the thinking that those of us exercising our apartment living option as human beings are also busy professionals, and so we’re required to hit the road to get to work. And if you’re driving to work, then you’re dealing with merging – probably multiple times during your commute.

Plus, having recently followed the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) advice (and insistence that it’s more time effective for everyone) by converting to the Zipper Merge strategy, I need to talk about it.

First of all, the Zipper Merge is not natural to the Midwestern sensibility. No, instead we prefer the Early Merge – stacking ourselves up in a monstrous single-file horror for five miles if we have to – because we know that eventually, our lane is going to end. So, we aim to get ahead of the problem by moving over early. Employed by (I would say) 99% of the bleary-eyed, coffee-swilling, make up-applying commuting population, the Early Merge seems like a reasonable and natural strategy.

At least, until another motorist has the gall to defy and violate it by driving in the ill-fated lane until they can’t anymore. It’s a raw deal. There we sit, we Early Mergers who are sensible enough to heed the dissolution-of-lane warnings, as carefree Zipper Mergers scream by at full speed with looks that seem to say, “Why are you sitting there? What are you – a bunch of losers?”

And suddenly, we Early Mergers do feel like losers. The heat rises in our faces and we wonder if we’re stupid. We start to get mad. We feel resentful that Zipper Mergers can cruise by at full speed and end up forty cars in front of us while we, the sensible ones who heed the warnings and follow the rules, have just added fifteen minutes to our commute and six years to our lives due to rising blood pressure at their transgressions. How can Zipper Mergers be so reckless and thoughtless and careless?

At this point, a few Early Mergers will decide to take things into their own hands and stonewall Zipper Mergers by straddling the lane hash marks with their bumpers. “Hah!” these Early Mergers think. “They’re stuck now – just like us!” This maneuver often leads to honking, obscenities, and occasionally Zipper Mergers revving their engines and squeezing themselves between the cross-lane Early Merger and the edge of the shoulder to squeak by, giving the offending Early Merger the finger through the rear window in triumph.

And if any of the Early Mergers further along in the stack-up have been paying any attention at all to said lane-blocking battle, their role in the confoundery of the Zipper Mergers is to simply refuse them access to the new lane at the merge point. This last-stand tactic leads to more honking, more obscenities, more fingers, and every once in a while, more shoulder-driving.

But you can’t keep a Zipper Merger down, so in the end, they’ve whizzed by countless static Early Mergers, shaved several minutes off their commute, and ended up continuing on to work on-time and with a firm can-do attitude, rather than ending up lonely and alone by the side of the road with no lane to drive in – which is the fate that Early Mergers fear and are trying to avoid.

Does the DOT really think that a few commercials suggesting Zipper Merging is the way of the future is going to put an end to this all-out blacktop war?

I don’t know. I’ve converted from Early Merger to Zipper Merger, and you know what? It is faster. The DOT isn’t lying to us. Aside from feeling that I’m a marked woman after driving the whole length of my soon-to-end-lane and the stomach churning generated by doing something that doesn’t come naturally, it’s quite pleasant being a Zipper Merger. I feel less stress than I do sitting in a two-mile-long lane back-up, all of my hair standing on end as I wonder if I’m going to get where I’m going by the time I need to be there. And I think it does make sense to use all the lanes available. Why back up earlier than you need to?

And so, renters and owners, let’s stop the Early Merger-Zipper Merger war. Let’s stop the lane-blocking and finger-waving, agree to a truce, and try a new way of merging. We may not be able to get out of working (after all, we’ve gotta pay the rent), but at least we can make the trip there and back a little faster and a little more pleasant.

Welcome to rentopiablog!

Welcome to rentopiablog — the blog that’s reframing the conversation about renting, leasing, and apartment living. Here, you’ll find everything from tricks of the trade to the dos and don’ts of apartment living, news and notes of interest in the industry, and everything in between.

Here’s the thing — the old identity of the “renter” has been wiped away. With the economy in a tailspin and no dramatic improvement in sight, renting isn’t just for rookies — it’s a way of life for busy professionals young and old alike. In fact, the whole ideology behind apartment living is evolving and growing — it’s no longer defined as only a way to live when you can’t afford a house. Instead, apartment living has become a chic, practical, and savvy way to live life on your own terms.

With that said, there are some pretty crazy things that can happen when you’re renting. When you’re living in an apartment, you’re sharing communal space with a lot more people than you would be if you owned a house — or even a town home — so the stories and the rules are a little, uh, different. Here, we’ll explore some of those things, share ideas, and talk about what’s working and what’s not in the world of renting.

This is a place committed to transforming the idea and identity of the renter as a savvy, sophisticated, practical, busy professional. Welcome to the new conversation about apartment living.