My Poor Friend Anne

If you have ever lived by yourself, you will agree the first thoughts about your new life can be pretty scary. Yet, you live to tell about it and discover it was one of the best things you have ever done. Well it was that way for me. I learned that I am a mess, but I can live by myself and Abbey lived to tell about it. So I feel that I can sympathize with my dear friend Anne who after living in sorority houses in Harrisonburg and a house full of people in Richmond is stepping into the world of alone. I am sure the scene of Bridget Jones singing "ALLLL BYYY MYYYSELLLLFF" and the thought of the cat picking away at you if you fell like in Sex and the City have done nothing to boost the esteem of a young woman living by herself. Ahhh but these are the days you look back on and laugh about later. I promise Anne. I do have to give away one story on her adventure however. Poor girl. She has been so excited about her new house and the curtains that she is going to hang, that nothing could have prepared her for what was about to happen. The guy who lived there before her moved out about a month ago. He cut off all electricity, water and everything else. Not a big deal, right? Well Anne finally got the key to her place and she walked in the door and it smelled like something had died a horrible death. Seriously, not like maybe something was moldy or the trash had not been taken out, but one of the most dreadful smells in the world. She came over to Burlees the next day and told Gibson and myself of the smell. She was convinced a mouse had died in the wall and it would smell like this forever. We went to investigate. Seriously the smell knocked you off your feet when you walked in, and I began to worry. I asked if there was a cat and Anne said yes, upstairs. I was convinced she had a crazy lady living above her and the cat liked to pee in anne's house, because that is what it smelled like. I didn't have the heart to tell her that smell would never go away. Instead we started moving things and looking around for this dead mouse. When out of the corner of my eye I notice a fly going into the ice maker in the fridge, that again had not been on in a MONTH. Stupidly I went over and took a big wiff. Ummm Anne I think the problem is in here I say trying my hardest not to vomit all over her new kitchen. Gibson pulls out the tray and says Anne you are really going to laugh at this...there is a beer can in here. Anne puts her head in and shrieks with all of her might....THERE IS MEAT!!! Apparently, and I say apparently because I was not going to stick my head near it again there was a tube of ground chuck with maggots all over it in the ice machine. Gibson rushed the ice maker outside, Anne cried, and Burlee and I tried not to throw up. Luckily Anne's dad was coming that day to take care of the rest of the scene, and anne laughed at herself for crying, and I told Anne some of my horror stories at my apartment like attack of the killer fleas. The moral of this story...bring your own ice to Anne's house.