Adulthood

I love going into my neighbor's apartment when she is out of town. It is the apartment of an adult. It is clean and orderly and orderly and clean: magazines and a book of photos stacked on the table, dining table with chairs tucked in neatly, a standing lamp with a beautiful arch, curtains! Wooden slatted blinds! It smells like expensive candles and the dark wooden floor feels warm and creaky. Her book shelves are perfect and full; there's no action figures or  hairy hairbrush or pile of pennies and gum wrappers. There's no broken coffee cup handle or DVD without a case or cluster of dog hair tucked down at the bottom corners (although she has a furry dog). And her desk! There's a stapler AND tape dispenser, pens, sweet photos, and her bills (all 2 of them) are stacked neatly with a paper clip in the top corner.

Shall I go on? (yes, I did just say shall, and now I'm pointing my toe)

The kitchen, as you can see, is spotless, not in a bachelor-pad, unused sort of way, but more like a master chef/working kitchen way. Pots and pans hang from a section above the stove which is old fashioned and white and free of old spaghetti sauce droppings or grease splatters. There's a bowl of lemons and onions and garlic, a row of fancy kitchen gadgets, and a huge double sink, clean and sparkling, with the faucet lined up exactly in the center. Spoon and spatulas fill a ceramic vase, and the dog food dish is presented on it's own special iron stand next to a water bowl filled with clear fresh cool water.

Follow me into the bathroom with it's beautiful old french style black and white tiles, a tiny chandelier(!), a huge bath and separate shower with a shower head as big as a frisbee, a thick glass jar filled with all kinds of handmade soaps, a mirror where you only see from the neck up. Just close your eyes and breathe; you'll feel instantly relaxed. You won't see funky thread-bare beach towels in a moldy heap, no crusty dirt and foam on the soap dish, no rubber shark or sqeezed out empty shampoo tubes on the side of the tub, and certainly, not one single lone pube on the toilet.

Now do you get why I'm down here?

I'm not sure what you have to do to get to live in an adult apartment but whatever road it is that leads you there, I have yet to travel it.