you tell me...

sara and i are highly qualified to be on HGTV's show house-hunters. except it should be called "meet lots of strange people and ugly wall paper." i seriously think we have seen every possible house/townhouse/condo/apartment/duplex in greenville. we haven't hit the trailers so maybe we've missed our "home-run." who knows but we are exhausted. here are some of the potential landlords and homes we have met:

joy: pretty much the opposite of her name. i think she was too busy re-asking us whether or not we had pets to actually give us a quality tour of the apartment. we gave her our email addresses... she never emailed us back.

david: precious old man who really wanted us to rent from him. we were a little wary when we called to make the appointment to meet. he said "i gotta brush my teeth and put on a shirt real quick and i'll be there." he ended up being super nice but we weren't sure if he'd agree to us "renovating" the bathrooms... wallpaper is a big minus (little did we know the worst of the wallpaper was yet to be seen).

michael: very helpful man with a little patch of white hair in the middle of his dark-haired head. he had some nice places but they just weren't available.

bo: typical southern gentlemen/golfer/real-estate agent. drove us around in his suburban to a number of locations. this is when we encountered quite possibly the worst house ever. evidently the previous tenants had literally JUST moved out the night before for an emergency reason (warning sign number 1). he warned us that he hadn't seen the house since the tenants moved out but if we went with an open mind then he'd take us. "suuure, why not" we said. we pull up and it there is a pile of trash at the street. we open the front door and a not so beautiful tile arrangement on the wall was right there to greet us. now i wish i could describe these tiles... let's just say imagine pictures of pilgrims and windmills but on tiles.. arranged on a wooden wall in the foyer of an old brick house. we continue through the house, random furniture still remained. when bo opened the garage door, a very bad odor introduced itself. it was like eight sopping wet dogs had lived in that garage for 100 years. it was very very bad. we made our way to the kitchen where lovely white tiles with blue dolphins lined the walls. (bad sign number 2: ugly tiles X 2). after making a hasty lap around the house we finally returned to the fresh outside air. as i made my way back to the car i took a moment to look down at my feet... hmm i thought.. "those little black dots weren't there before.." fleas (bad sign number 3). there were about 11 on my feet/ankles. just as i began to brush them off, poor little sara also noticed that she had been ravaged upon. she looked like she had been stung by bees. bo apologized and laughed when i asked him how much rent was.

freddie condo: was given the last name condo in my phone so that i'd be able to keep track of who he was. this became hilarious to us. we met freddie condo and his wife. their place was very nice, but a smidge out of our price range. we made sure to mention we were nursing students to get some honest bonus points. mrs. condo seemed impressed b/c she's a nurse, but i think freddie wasn't too intrigued. twas confirmed when the next day their craigslist posting was relisted in capital letters.

charlie townhouse: i think sara's exact words were "hell is about to open up and swallow us whole." but let me take you to the day before. we found a townhouse we liked and i immediately called the given phone number while we still sat out front of it. a very very strong indian accented man answered. i asked for more details about the townhouse and tried to replay the words he spoke over and over to try and translate what he was saying. apparently my facial expressions were one for the books because although sara could not hear him, she began to roll with laughter. this did not help my situation b/c not only was i trying to understand this man on the phone, i was desperately trying not to laugh. i asked him when we could see the inside and he said "you tell me." so i told him the next day and asked what time worked best for him. he said, "you tell me." so i told him 2. he then proceeded to tell me he had another condo off of some non-understandable street. i honestly had no idea what this poor man was trying to tell me so i told him, okay we'll meet you at this townhouse first and then we'll follow you to that condo (wherever it may be). we then continued to giggle about the hilarity of his "accent." Come 2:00 the next day, we bit our tongues. poor charlie was indeed indian but also had some type of dis figuration around his mouth. maybe a jaw surgery or reconstruction. whatever the case, bless his heart and forgive us for being so careless. when we got in our car to follow him to the other condo sara said the statement i mentioned earlier. he was so nice and we let him know how much we appreciated his time. he made sure to tell us that if we went inside this condo "we would never want to come out." too bad the girl wasn't home and he didn't have an extra key with him.

willy: old man. knew some nursing students who paid the bills by stripping at the silver bullet. was he implying something? quite a character.

mabel: reminded us of the previously mentioned joy. just add some nasty light fixtures and bad wallpaper.

kevin tara: such a tease. this was our home-run, grand-slam, cross your fingers, and jump up and down condo. i couldn't sleep for practically 2 nights just b/c all i could think about was how nice our new condo would be. we saw it, sara's parents came and saw it, we filled out applications, the whole nine-yards and then... after almost 2 weeks of banking on this place kevin tara finds out that his new house will be ready later than he expected and we would have to wait 3 extra weeks. boo hiss. we're not done with him yet.

audrey: our latest find. you can smell and hear the cigarettes when you meet her, but she was as sweet as could be. she was very helpful and we might not be done with her yet either. through our time touring some of her houses i learned two things: one: wall paper can get uglier and two: sara HATES wood paneling.

overall we have also spoken with about 5 rental companies and i have been stalking craigslist hourly. we have to be out of here july 31st. we have plenty of time... kinda. i know the right place will come along. it has to.

p.s. there have been way too many bugs in our current apartment lately. i can handle flies, gnats, and crickets, but here's a memo to the spiders and roaches: ew i do not like you. please stay off of my bed and go live in the room that nobody has access too. kthxbye.

therefore natalie dee made me smile when she posted this: