If this is my future, I'd like to wait for the next bus, thanks.

For the past week or two I've been feeling a bit discouraged about the apartment hunt (I finally did the expenses calculations on paper; it was depressing. This is another reason why I still love writing more than math.) This morning though I got up early, read the paper, and circled some places that sounded interesting. Then I actually called them and people actually answered. I set up three appointments. Two for today, one for tomorrow. This is the resulting adventure of the first appointment.

I was supposed to meet the landlord at noon. I arrive at the Osborne Village address and see that the place is a charming suite on the top floor of a Painted Lady style house. I wait outside for the guy to show up.

Soon enough, an old grey Volvo station wagon pulls up and parks in front. A tall man, roughly the age of my dad, or maybe just roughly aged, gets out and greets me.

"I just realized that I brought the wrong keys with me. Grabbed the green instead of the blue. We can try the buzzer to see if someone is home."

We try and have no luck in reaching anyone. "I don't live far from here, it will only take about 10 minutes to go get the keys," he tells me. "Would you like to come for the ride? It's warmer than waiting outside."

I do actually stop and listen for a moment to the voices in my head telling me not to get into the car with this man. I ignore them though and go anyway, and as you can see, I lived to tell the story (Side note: this is the second time in my life that I've gotten into a car with a strange man. I figure that I have one more chance before something terrible happens, so I intend to use my last free ride very carefully).

We chat a bit during the ride. He tells me that the tenant before the one in the suite now was a Jill, so he had a good feeling about me after we spoke on the phone. "It's a Jill House," he tells me. I like the sound of that. It is only appropriate that ajillstory should take place in A Jill House. He also adds that anyone who lives in the house generally sticks around for a long time. The first Jill stayed 10 years. By the time we return to the house I am quite excited to check things out.

The front door opens to a common landing. We must go up a narrow staircase to a tiny second landing to get to the apartment door. The guy knocks, opens the door, and announces himself. Chris, the current tenant, is a bit surprised to have company. She replies back, "I'm in my underwear." We retreat back to the tiny landing and give her a few moments to get decent.

We eventually get into the place. There's another small set of stairs and another tiny landing from which three rooms span out. We find Chris sitting on her couch in her tiny living room in her pajamas, eating a bowl of Cherrios. The place is looking quite lived in.

"Come in, look around, don't be afraid to open doors," she tells us.

Before we went in, the guy sized me up and said he was glad that I wasn't tall, because with the place being on the top floor of this old house, the ceilings are all sloped and low. I didn't see that as being a turn off at first. I had a friend who lived in a place like that and it was quite cute actually. It didn't feel small or tight at all, it was also kept clean though. I felt very uncomfortable peaking around in this place when clothes were all over the floor and dirty dishes were all across the counter and in the sink. The kitchen area was the biggest room of the suite, but it was also the most drastically affected by the peaked ceilings. I could not fathom setting up my pub style table in there. Given the untidy state of the place at the time, I couldn't really fathom taking the health risk of setting up anything in there. I don't know how my face read but I could feel myself struggling to hold up my front of being mildly impressed. Ten years in that place would be a jail sentence that this Jill does not deserve.

Tomorrow I check out a place in my own neighbourhood. I'll let you know how it goes. It can't get much worse.