Pulled into [Saskatoon], was feeling bout half past dead

"Look," my mom said as she plopped a magazine in front of my plate, "there's an article about Saskatoon in here!"

I was at the restaurant and my parents had made me my "last supper" before I left for Saskatchewan. Luckily, Strathmore is on the way and I had stopped in for a last goodbye. I calmly shovelled another mouthful of my precious Alberta beef steak in my mouth and dragged the magazine closer so I could read. It had something about Saskatoon pottery in it. "Apparently, Saskatchewan is famous for its clay!" said my mother excitedly. A little too excitedly. She was trying to cheer me up as she knew I'd be leaving for the 'Toon in a half an hour.

"Great. Land of living skies . . . and clay. Doesn't that sound so exciting boys and girls?"

I groaned while my mom patted my arm sympathetically and made me eat more. My dad walked by and wanted to know if I had a bottle of water for the drive. They were being so nice damnit! Eventually, I had to finish my food and leave.

I waved goodbye to my parents, stumbled out the backdoor of the restaurant and headed out to my car. Slumped over the steering wheel of my car, I debated whether I should cry, swear or just buckle my seat belt and start driving.

I decided big girls don't cry/swear about having to go back to Saskatchewan so I chose the latter.

The roads were smooth and dry. Stretched all around me was the gorgeous scenery of the prairies. Yellow fields rippled in the wind on my left and green hills rolled into the distance on my right. Butterflies twittered in the tall grass by the roadside and chased each other among the yellow buttercups. I rolled down the windows, pressed the gas pedal down hard and let the wind rush through the car as I passed another truck.

The green hills turned to smaller green hills, then green mounds, and eventually, green flatness. In no time at all, I was in Saskatchewan. It was still bright out and I could see golden wheat fields stretching as far as the eye could see. It was incredible.

I got to Oyen, my usual stop and decided "what the hey, I'll just keep going." I passed farm after farm and field after field. Even from the car, the fields looked like a giant quiltwork of green and yellow. I could only imagine what it would look like from a plane. At one point, I passed a donkey farm and oogled at the strange creatures scratching their backs against the fence.

And then, there it was . . . a giant sign saying "WELCOME TO SASKATOON."

Diefenbaker Drive greeted me and I drove steadily past Circle Drive, Confederation drive and Idylwyld. Last time I'd seen these streets, they were still brown from the winter and the trees were bare. It was strange to come back and see them in all their green summer glory.

But it was as soon as I entered Saskatoon that my fate changed. Despite the flat topography, everything seemed to go downhill from there.

I took my usual route to get to the University bridge, only to realise it was closed for construction. I had to pull a U-turn, suffered through several red lights and stop signs and eventually found another route onto the bridge. Once past the bridge, I drove on to my apartment, almost hit a cyclist and then, finally, reached my building.

My parking spot which my landlord had faithfully promised to reserve for me had a giant pylon in it with a "NO PARKING" sign beside it. I grumbled, parked in the 1hour parking and went to the parking lot to find my landlord.

"Hello! How are you! I have something bad to tell you."
"Oh no."
"Well, it's not that bad. Come see for yourself."

I followed him up the three flights of stairs and got to my new apartment suite. He opened the door and already, I could smell it. The pungent smell of mouldy carpet. Memories of vaccuuming up water in my flooded basement from over the summer all came back to me at once.

"Well, it's been raining lots in Saskatoon and I'm afriad that your roof was leaking. I didn't find out till yesterday when you called. I came in to open the windows and air out the apartment and found the leak."

I stood there in stunned silence then tried to be optimistic. "Well, it's only leakin in two spots. At least my stuff didn't get wet."

"Well, about that . . ."

He pointed to the middle of the floor where a fan was blowing at my binders and precious text books. Apparently, my stuff had been in the apartment all summer when it was leaking and a lot of it had gotten wet. The furniture (which thankfully isn't mine as my apartment comes fully furnished) was soggy and my sock drawer had a pool of brownish water in it.

I sighed and asked if there was another one bedroom suite available. "No, no more one bedrooms left."

I couldn't afford a two bedroom and I was NOT going back to a bachelor's suite.
"We're getting the roof fixed on Monday and then I'll come in a take out the stains from the room. The carpet should be dry soon and if you keep the fan on, your books will dry out by tomorrow too. I'm really really sorry."

I smiled a wan smile and let my landlord leave. "I'm sorry. I'll knock off a hundred from your first month's rent until this is sorted out." He did seem really sorry and there wasn't much either of us could do. I slumped on the damp couch and gathering up my strength, began to unpack.

Luckily, my electronics were all in my waterproof landry basket and were dry. My comfy white IKEA cushion was not so lucky and had to be thrown out. I tried to wipe down my pots and pans which were stuck in a wet carboard box and shoved them into the cupboards . . . only to discover the cupboards were sticky with some disgusting red stuff that the previous tenant had left behind.

I spent another hour cleaning out my kitchen. I opened the fridge and realised that the bag of refridgerated food I'd left in my previous apartment had not really survived the move and was completely covered in mold and some weird brown sticky stuff.

I decided to deal with it later and just slammed the door shut. I walked into the bedroom and gasped as there was a full length mirror in there and I could see that I was covered in dust. Everything was covered in dust. Dust and dirty blonde hair.

The furniture was all askew and against the walls and in other weird places as the roof was still leaking. I made a half-attempt to get the furniture somewhat sorted out as I needed a desk against the wall to put my laptop onto. As I rearranged the furniture, I thought about how I'd done the same thing last year when I first got Ranger and had to fit his cage into my tiny apartment somehow. As I gazed around my apartment, I could imagine his little bunny feet pattering around and chewing on my telephone cords.

I spent the rest of the night cleaning up the apartment. I forgot to eat dinner and didn't notice till 1am that I was hungry. By then, everything in Saskatoon was closed and hte only thing I had in the place was my mouldy bag of condiments in the fridge.

I sighed, hopped into the bed and called it a night.

"TSCH TSCH TSCH TSSSSSSSSSSSSCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"What the?"

I woke up with a start. I groaned. It was the house next to my apartment. Their sprinkler system was on in the middle of the night and so loud I thought my head would explode.

"Flutter flutter flutter flutter bonk. Flutter flutter flutter. Bonk BONK."
It was another sound, on top of the sprinkler.

"What the hell is that?"

I got up, reached for my glasses, but even without them on, I could see the shadow of a giant moth fluttering about the room and bonking into the glass of my window. I hate moths. what if it flew into my hair? What it if landed on my face? What if it flew into my ear in the middle of the night? I panicked.

I covered myself completely with my blankets and left a little hole beside the pillows so I could breathe. Unfortunately, my blankets had been in the musty apartment all summer and they stank like dirty towels. I tried to open the blankets a bit more to breathe but the fluttering sounded closer and I had to cover my head again. At least it sort of muffled the sound of the sprinklers.

Eventually, I fell asleep like that until I woke up this morning to the sound of the sprinklers again. I turned on my lights and noticed that the moth was caught in my light fixture and that one of my bulbs was burnt out.

My books hadn't quite dried and I was so hungry I contemplated the moldy pickles in my fridge.

I showered and realised Sasktel would be over in a bit to set up my cable/internet/phone. I'd have to stay put. Meanwhile, I tried again to dust and unpack. More moldy/waterstained items surfaced.

I waited around for another two hours before Sasktel finally showed up. Afterwards, I had to wait around for some other person from a computer store to come a "program" my computer. I rummaged around in the unpacked boxes on the floor and found some old pasta and spaghetti sauce and made myself a disgusting, meagre, pasta meal. I forced it down as I realised I hadn't eaten since my lunch the day before.

The programmer guy came, diddled around on my computer for 5 minutes and left. All he did was set up a new e-mail address for me and leave a pamphlet with troubleshooting phonenumbers on it. I checked the clock. It was 3:45. I still had no groceries, no dish detergent, no shower curtains and my carpet smelled like cats-piss.

I realised I'd missed the party which was at 1 o'clock and that I probably wouldn't make it to the one at 7pm if I was to get all my unpacking/cleaning/groceries done. I e-mailed my 1st year buddy and told her not to expect me at any functions. Not that she'd e-mailed me since two weeks ago anyway.

I ran across the street for some instant noodles to hold me over and began wiping down all the dust and hair from everything.

I bumped into my landlord in the hall, complained about the stench from my carpet and he set me up with some carpet foam which I just sprayed on the floor.

Now my apartment smells like arm&hammer garden fresh carpet foam and cats piss. Meanwhile, I probably inhaled more foam than I actually got on the carpet and my instant noodles tasted like the foam too.

And that is enough wallowing in self-pity for the day. Luckily, superstore is open late tonight (till 10pm! That's a big deal in Saskatoon) and I can clean out my fridge wipe down the countersbefore I go get food.

I haven't even been here 24 hours but I am ready to go home.