Death on Plum Street

As I sit here in my house on Plum street, musing on some of life's deeper questions-
" What am I doing here at CSU? How is it that I came to be living in this house on Plum Street? What does God have planned for me this year? Will I survive O-Chem? Why was the word "colleges" made into a link in the blog description? it's completely arbitrary. . .-
it is called to my attention that my house is trying to kill me.

Don't get me wrong, life is beautiful, CSU is wonderful, My roommates are fantastic, Plum street is lovely, I've even developed an optimistic affection for our quaint little house that's out to get me (it's what I like to call an "awkward mom" affection - in and of itself the thing in question would seem strange, bothersome, awkward, etc. but you can't help but love it despite (or perhaps because of) it's little quirks. like an awkward mom.)

But the fact remains that from the moment I climb out of bed in the morning to the moment I climb back in at night (and sometimes even after I've climbed back in), every moment spent in or around this house becomes an epic battle for my very life. And the house is good! Like a guerrilla terrorist stalking his query through the jungle, its sly and ruthless and when you least expect it, it strikes with deadly force! For one thing the front porch on the house is about two and a half feet off the ground, so there's a daily battle I often loose in and of itself, but in addition to the little things like this that persistently plague me, there have been some major events that shed light on the house on Plum Street's wrathful tendencies

It all started before I had even moved in and was up with my roommate Lindsay and our friend Allie painting the main room. We had no ladder and the ceilings are abnormally tall in this house, so we were getting creative in order to paint the top part of the wall. I was standing on a stack of phone books which were stacked on an end table (an end table with wheels, actually. . .) holding a paint brush and paint tray and stretching to reach the top of the wall when suddenly the end table rocked backwards as if something had pushed it and I found myself spinning a 180 in the air and struggling to find footing while the phone books flew from beneath my feet like frisbees. Finally my foot made contact with something solid -a phone book, which slipped from beneath my foot as soon as it had landed. I slipped backwards like a cartoon character slipping on a banana peel and landed sitting cross-legged on the upturned end table, facing away from the wall I had just been painting with paint brush and paint tray still in hand - not a drop spilled. It was, I must admit, pretty awesome. I thought I had escaped the whole ordeal without even a scratch- guardian angels: 3, demon-house on Plum Street: 0! (I've decided that this epic battle for my life will be scored using football rules) - until a couple minutes later when I noticed that my forearm was badly scratched and bleeding. How? I do not know. One can only assume the injury was accrued during the crazy James Bond fall. I guess the house gets a field goal for that one too.

Later that day I was trying to unplug our circa 1960's oven from the wall in order to paint the kitchen and was having difficulty freeing it from the outlet (judging by what we found under the oven it probably hadn't been unplugged or moved in twenty years). I was holding on to the plastic part of the plug and being careful not to get to close to the metal prongs and yanking with all of my strength. Suddenly, the outlet released the plug all at once and in the process my fingers somehow slipped and lightly touched the metal prongs and I was electrocuted. My 220 volt oven electrocuted me!! I am not exaggerating when I say that I almost died, 2

20 volts is more than enough to stop your heart. Touchdown on a hail-Mary pass for the guardian angels! plus a two point conversion makes the score 11, demon-house still stands at 3.

Not but 5 days after the oven ordeal I went back up to the house with a ladder to finish painting the bathroom and kitchen and to paint my room. The plan was this, I go up at night to paint and get the house ready, then my parents come up the next day with all my furniture to help me move in. Sounds like a great plan right? except when I got dropped off at the house at 10:30pm I found that both the electricity and water had been turned off, despite the fact that Lindsay had already called the power company and everything was supposed to be taken care of as far as electricity goes. The roommate who was paying the water bill was going to just let me call and switch the bill over to my name, but apparently she changed her mind and decided to cancel the service anyway. So there I was stuck in the house over night with no power, no water, and no car. Oh and things get better, all of our blinds were broken and I had no light to fix them with, so I had no way of covering the windows. I slept in a papazon chair crammed in the corner of our living room trying to stay out of sight until the sun came up. touch down house- the score stands at 11:9

Then, the next day when my parents came up with all my stuff, while my dad was changing out the light fixture in the kitchen, he found that not only was the wood that the light was fixed to rotting, but the wiring was shoddy and was probably close to burning down the house. Seriously, there were burn marks in the insulation. the house gets the extra point conversion for that one, but the guardian angels also score a touchdown due to the fact that since I had no power I was unable to turn on the kitchen light and potentially burn down the house. God works in mysterious, amusing ways. angels: 17, house: 10

Then I actually moved into the house, and the real fun began. This new chapter in the saga begins with my parents dropping me off at school on our way back from a family camping trip and me realizing that I did not remember my purse which contained all my money, my keys, and my identification, shortly after this realization I resigned to the fact that I would have to wait at least a week to get my purse back. Not having any keys I had to climb in and out of our house via the kitchen window, which is unsettlingly easy to break in through. the first time I had to do it my mom was there to hold the window open for me so it worked out great. The second time, however, I had to do it all by myself and as I was sliding across the window sill into the kitchen the window suddenly lost it's hold and slammed down directly onto my butt. which sucked. The house only gets a field goal for this one though, because if the window had to slam down with me in it, at least it slammed on the part with the most padding. angels: 17, house: 13

Shortly thereafter, I was trying to turn off the light in my room and managed to hit my head on not just one of the ceiling fan blades, but all five of them, at least once each. To explain how this happened I will briefly have to describe my room to you: I have a double size loft bed in my room with a desk underneath it to save space. This is extremely convenient, but since the bed is double sized it overlaps with the ceiling fan and light fixture, which is located directly in the center of the room, by about one foot in the top right corner of the bed. For most people this would never pose a problem since there is about four feet between the bed and the ceiling and therefore plenty of space to avoid the fan, but since my house is out to get me I wasn't so lucky. One night I was stretching from my bed to turn off the light by pulling the light cord but in the process of doing so I also accidentally pulled off the lower part cord. So in the dusky dark I leaned even further over to try to reattach said cord, unknowingly placing my head directly below rapidly spinning fan blades. In the position I was currently in, my arms were not long enough to reach the shortened light cord, so I sat up a bit taller to give myself the three extra inches necessary to reach it. In doing so I raised my head directly into the fan and was whacked somewhere between 5 and 8 times in the exact same place on my skull. I collapsed back onto my bed with a pounding headache and a large lump forming on my skull. This reinforces Amanda's theory that ceiling fans are shady, up-to-no-good characters that are in league with my demon-house to destroy me. The house gets a full-on touchdown for that one- I still have the bump on my head from almost a week later. but I'm not giving it the extra point, because that was a cheap shot: clearly I was sleepy and not in prime battling condition. Bad form demon house: twenty-yard penalty. The score stands- guardian angels: 17, house: 19

The final incident I will report happened just a few mornings ago. I needed to get to campus to mail a biology textbook I had just sold on e-bay. I had spent the night before scrounging around my room for money to pay the shipping on the book since my wallet was in my purse at home. I managed to find seven dollars strewn throughout my room, then my friend Jay who was visiting graciously gave me four more dollars to cover the potential shipping cost. The next morning as I was getting ready to leave my friend called and asked if I would like a ride to campus with her and her brother, which I gladly accepted. Just as they pulled up in front of my house I realized that I couldn't find the sticky-note with the address to ship the book to on it (the demon-ceiling fans in league with my house probably stole it). So as my friends patiently waited in the street I scrambled around my room trying to find it. Finally after about five minutes I ran out my back door (I chose not to go through the front door since I had no way to lock it) and across our gravel driveway to their car. When I was only eight feet from the car I caught my foot on a tree root and did a superman straight onto my face; arms splayed out in front of me, book underneath me, ego shattered and strewn about me. Surprisingly, the angels get the touchdown for this one, and here's why: despite the fact that I took a nasty spill, I escaped with nothing but a few bruises on my legs and a scrape on my wrist. Second, I prayed for humility, and God delivered in an extremely entertaining way. Third, because the soft-cover textbook I had just sold was not destroyed in the fall, which I am extremely grateful for. So as of now the score stands at guardian angels: 24, out-to-get-me-demon-house-with-ceiling-fan-minions on plum street:19.

I do realize that many of the things that have happened to me in this house are my own stupid mistakes. But hey, I'm 18. My oyster hasn't exactly had ample time to cultivate any sizable pearls of wisdom here. I stand by my belief that this house is capitalizing on my dumb decisions. Most people get away with their stupid decisions without the threat of death looming around every corner.


But be warned demon-house! I will prevail! Thou shalt not overcome me! Life on plum street shall go on! Ever singing march I onward! I will rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, and persevere in reckless decisions! For yea though I climb through the kitchen window of the shadow of death I will fear no ceiling fans, for thou art with me!



Deo Omnis Gloria