Three Times A Charm

third degree (thurd di-GREE)
noun
Intensive questioning using rough treatment.
adjective
Pertaining to the third degree.
verb
To subject to such treatment.

This week marked our return to the Chicago Apartment Finders and, more grossly, our reentry into the neverending adventure of apartment hunting. After a spring of weekend condo searches in Logan Square and Uptown, an intense summer spent scouring all of Chicago for something with a deck (and teasing ourselves with short jaunts along Wicker Park's stretch of Hoyne Avenue), it seems our fall will define itself as the third installment of the Search for the Right Home. Which, in hindsight, makes perfect sense.

Our now-tainted Armitage garden apartment appeared, amidst somewhat sketchy circumstances, as a viable, livable option on the very heels of the month designated for our move. It was a blurry day, I remember, the end of June. Misty, warm, a summer anomaly, our first real visit to the Bucktown area. We walked along Armitage as fading hopefuls, nodding our heads lightly and grasping for optimism--"Oh, there's a convenience store on the corner," and "We'd be right next to the MapRoom,"--while internally praying that this apartment would lack the stale, white-washed walls typical of Chicago rentals in our price range. The tenant, Colleen, stood outside sweeping the front porch when we arrived. I remember her as nice, kind of distracted, a bit frazzled, maybe even nervous, but just shrugged it all off in favor of inhaling the apartment's feel. Later, when dealing with her to arrange the move, I recognized her initial interaction as a front that hid an insecure, control-obsessed yuppie, not a quirky demeanor. Yet, we entered the apartment with the kind of desperation that turns plastic into gold. Colleen did not fool us into settling for the bottom floor; we did not close our eyes and shake hands. The place had big front windows, free laundry, front and back porch, hardwood floors, the character of an aged building--potential.

Rarely do I think back on moments in my life and wish to relive them as a witness. But the conversation-walk after first viewing the Armitage apartment stands as such a case. The mist evolved into rain and our pros and cons merged into one prevailing thought: We can make this work. Although we never said that aloud, I know we certainly didn't convince each other beyond what either of us wanted. Smiling, embracing, sighing, centering our minds and bodies on relief, we simply decided to punch our ticket.

And now we're clocking out.

Those big front windows proved cheap and easy to break into. The free laundry comes at the price of constantly removing other people's damp, rank bathroom mats. Each porch collects trash like magnets, with our neighbors storing debris from summer construction in the back and choosing to withdraw their promise to remove it. Our floors warp to obstacles in the second room and echo with dragon-like volume above us whenever unwanted roommates walk, stomp, march, or pace (which occurs steadily each night from 10 PM to 1 AM and begins anew each morning between 6 AM and 8 AM). Flakes from paint-covered brick topple to the ground in chunks at the very touch, and outside seem to amass in piles like red dust. Our thermostat reads at least ten degrees warmer than reality, and this morning we awoke to a high in the low forties.

But there's not a cloud in the sky.