New Digs

Thomas moved into his new apartment a few weeks ago, after spending some weeks visiting our fold out in the sunroom.  OK, so I all it an apartment, and he calls it a house.  It's actually a duplex, so let's split the difference.  In either event, it's on the southern end of SoBro, which is the southern portion of South Broad Ripple, so he is now one of the cool kids.  Or not.  Oh well, he's close the the library, the police station and the fire station, all within a few blocks radius of his house.

He's living with one of his buddies, Ben, and my fourth child, Chris, who is in his element in his very first apartment.  Ben, not so much, since he had a good job at Lockheed Martin as an engineer or, as he called it, The Restroom Grand Tour, since he basically spent his whole day wandering around the building with the excuse of looking for a restroom..  After a few years of the grand tour, he ditched it all and came to Indiana, and is now tutoring some Indian kid up north, making more money than I do as a nurse.  But I digress.  Chris has the small, corner room and seems to be as happy as a clam.  Thomas got the big room and is still wondering why, since he really doesn't care.

Thomas' biggest complaint was that they needed a table.  Jim tried to give him our smaller kitchen table, but he declined, saying that they didn't have room for it.  Jim doubted this, and I just shrugged, till I was told by the heir to the throne that he couldn't believe that I hadn't seen his new digs yet.  "I mean, Dad has been here, and you haven't.  What's wrong with that picture?"  I went over, and his dog promptly bit me (see previous post), but before I toddled off to Medcheck, The Heir told me that it wasn't that they didn't have room for a table, it was that they needed a bigger table than what Jim had offered.

That afternoon, they followed my advice, went to the furniture store up the block and pad $50 for a dining room table, which was promptly taken home by the four of them, carrying it he-man style down College Avenue.  I wish I had pictures.  Or video.

They needed a bigger table because they like to play games, and the card table they were using wasn't big enough.  Seth spends lots of time over there, hanging out (it's closer to his internship than we are), or just hanging out with his bros.  I suppose when school starts, they will still hang out, because it's only a few minutes from Butler, where Seth will be living on campus.  And so it was that Thomas gave Seth a key to the house:

And Seth loves it.  I thought at first it was plastic, but Seth told me today, as we were waiting to pick up his car from Walmart's automotive department, that it's not only metal, but it has some weight to it, "so when I swing my lanyard around, I thought that maybe it would kill someone if I hit them with it."  This digressed into a conversation about how perhaps this is why Goths love Hello Kitty, because of the danger element.

Who knows.

Movin' on Up

I think I've mentioned that Thomas is moving out. He's getting his first apartment, and he's pretty pumped up about it. He came down the other day and asked me if I'd help him pack. I shivered at the thought.

I told him he should start with his clothes first. Do the winter clothes now, and save what he needs to wear this week till later, but bring down the dirty clothes, cause I didn't want him packing away dirty clothes. "I don't have any dirty clothes," said the heir to the throne. Sure. Right. Those of you who have read about his laundry in the past know that it is a thing to be feared.

I went up to his room, and was met with the normal view -- floor covered with clothes. I pointed to one pile and asked, "what is that?" He said "oh, those are dirty." "So you DO have dirty clothes up here. What about these?" I pointed to the pile next to the other one and asked "what's up with these?" "Oh, those are clean." Just exactly how he could tell the difference is something that only a nineteen year old boy would know.

I folded a few things and got him started, then left him to his own devices, telling him to bring the dirty stuff down. A little bit later, he comes down with half a hamper of clothes. I told him that no way was that all of it. He said "well, you don't want it all. There's a LOT." OK, now we're getting to the bottom of it. I told him to go back upstairs and toss down the dirty stuff, cause I was doing laundry, and wanted to do it all at one time. The result was an avalanche of clothes that darn near could've knocked me out, and completely blocked anyone from the stairs.

::sigh::

At this point, I yelled up "throw your sheets down, too." "WHAT," he replied. "THROW YOUR SHEETS DOWN." I gave up all hope with the response:

"I have sheets?"