My residence stays the same. Naturally, most people can appreciate this. When you leave your home, everything stays where you put it, more or less. Unless you live in an area frequented by earthquakes or burglars, your belongings stay where you put them. I, however, don't like coming home to the same arrangement of furniture.
I've thought about moving, but the effect is not worth the effort. It takes about eight truckloads to move my meager furniture, electronics and personal effects. And my living room set was specifically designed to be cumbersome and virtually impossible to fit in the back of a typical pickup truck. Whether a conspiracy by the furniture companies, the automobile manufacturers, both or neither, it remains a fact that couches are not meant to be moved from place to place in the bed of small truck. In the pages of popular magazines and on the commercials they rarely illustrate the capacity of pickup trucks to convey large sums of matter from one point to another. If the advertising department decides to make a point of this, the trucks are seen hauling gravel, bales of hay, boxes of mutant chickens, propane cylinders or a single piece of furniture, usually a small table that I could haul around on my back while walking down to the corner store.
Optimally, furniture should be airlifted by helicopter from one residence to another. And if you're one of those people that buy all your furniture at Ikea and you're especially proud of your lime green love seat that folds out into a bed at the touch of a button, then point to the sky and proclaim with pride, "See that couch? That's mine." On the other hand, if your furniture is like mine, you might want to just stay inside for a couple of days until they clean up the bodies of everyone who laughed themselves to death while walking down the street, suffering from unearthly amusement at the sight of a helicopter carrying an off-white, floral patterned, three legged monstrosity that has a tear in the corner of the fabric where a small dog once decided to wage war upon it.
I called a moving company once. It was a dark glimpse into the twisted, alien-like work that only people who move furniture know. It's not something that I want to do again, almost compelling me to tear the moving companies subdirectory from the phone book and setting it on fire. The shred of absurdity comes from the notion that all rooms, in all houses are essentially of the same dimensions.
"How many rooms?"
What?
"Rooms. How many rooms of furniture do you need moved?"
All of them. Consider the wide-eyed dismay of the strong-arms who happen upon my residence, if it were, an abandoned water tower. Just one room. One big, round room. One flat fee. What if my furniture was crafted out of a single, giant block of lead? What if I had no furniture, only open, fifty-five gallon oil drums filled with chemical warfare substances? Or a collection of decaying, mummified horses?
Overall, I don't really mind where I live. My apartment is located next to the main intersection of a small town that rests in a valley next to a river. Most people would say that I live in a dull, unexciting town. True, but this allows for a low crime rate except for the occasional parking violation which will set you back about two dollars. Because the fine is terribly low, I don't even bother putting any money in the meter any more.
The town is collectively going to heaven, as there is a large number of churches in town. A number of taverns, an antique store, two flower shops, a corner grocery store, a deli and, oddly enough a scuba gear shop also have a place in town.
My apartment is sandwiched between the first and third floors of an old brick house that now serves the housing requirements of four separate families. There's a living room, bedroom, small kitchen and a bathroom that, due to its dimensions, prohibits me from from needing pants with a waist larger than 32 inches. On the plus side, it's impossible to slip and fall in the shower.
There are a number of other quirks with my place. The hot water is one. To refer to the liquid dispensed from the tap when you turn the handle labeled "H" as hot is an understatement. The hot water is a few degrees shy of of being in gaseous form. I can only imagine that the water is used as coolant for a thermonuclear generator located in the basement before being pumped upstairs. Normally, this wouldn't be so much of a problem, except that the regular unheated water is ultra-sensitive to being dispensed. As such, if I'm not careful while showering, I might have the upper portion of my torso dissolved my jets of liquid elemental fire which would form a slimy paste and, to the dismay of the landlord, clog the drain.
A side effect of the thermal integrity of the hot water is the heat produced my the hot water registers located throughout my dwelling make the place very comfortable in the winter months. Assuming that you do not approach the registers within a yard, you may remain comfortable and not engulfed in flame as your clothing catches fire. If you are not wearing any clothing, you would merely dehydrate instantly, shriveling into something a cannibal might take as a snack on a long hiking trip.
Another oddity is the electrical system, apparently installed when the need for devices that require a power source was considered a fad on its way out. The outlets are geometrically placed as far as possible from any place that would logically have a need for an outlet, while still remaining within the confines of the building.
A simple solution is to move the equipment closer to the outlets, which is fine if you don't mind watching television while it sits on your lap.