Like tar burping out of the ground at the La Brea Tar Pits, my name bubbled up to the top of a waitlist at a low-income senior apartment complex in Veneta, Oregon. Veneta, Oregon, you say. Where the heck is that? And more to the point, having Google Mapped it, why on earth would you choose to live there?
I found the place the way I find everything: wandering aimlessly in the hinterlands hoping the GPS Lady will rescue me. Veneta, Oregon, is a small place just west of Eugene, which is similar to Portland in the sense that it is big, congested, and ugly. However, in contrast to Portland, Eugene is overrun by college students, to whom I am completely invisible, which is fine, unless I want to buy something at Best Buy, which in that case, I have to yell at the top of my lungs for some brat to notice me. I use the term brat in a perjorative sense.
Anyway, a studio apartment in Veneta came open at the same time my name came up, and thus I received an offer: Do I want to rent the place?
There was a time when I would have demanded to see the apartment first. Now, I don’t care what it looks like. As long as I can afford it and it doesn’t have cockroaches, I can make it work.
I have to give the property manager a lot of credit. She started trying to reach my former landlords and ran into some roadblocks—nevertheless, she persisted. I did my best to resolve the roadblocks. I think she might have gained the information she sought, but I haven’t heard from her yet this week, so it’s possible the info she received wasn’t positive. In her defense, it was a holiday weekend. Maybe she vacationed in Eugene for a long weekend. What am I saying? She probably lives in Eugene. No young person would choose to live in Veneta. Maybe she is out of the office with Covid. Who knows. She might have said, enough already, and quit like several property managers I’ve met in the past four years. Dealing with wackjob tenants is probably a thankless job, especially if they are over 65.
Thankless, perhaps, but not because of me. I thanked her profusely, even though she probably had nothing to do with how long it took for my name to rise to the top of the desperate heap. I’m grateful, for sure. However, I’ll feel a lot more grateful when I finally have the keys in my hand. And when I see for myself there are no cockroach bait traps under the kitchen sink.