I admit, sometimes I can be obtuse. Sometimes I need to be gently nudged. Occasionally I need a polite memo from the cosmos.

The universe does not do polite memos.

It does blunt force trauma.

I was sitting in my extremely chilly apartment—wrapped in a blanket, wearing the orthopedic slippers I had purchased to prevent any further wood-floor splinters from embedding themselves in my sole—trying to watch TV at the exact decibel level of responsible adult who respects neighbors but also refuses to chew in silence.

I took the last bite of cereal. Stood up. Turned toward the sink.

And the ceiling fan fell out of the sky.

Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Physically.

This large, beautiful brass-and-wood ceiling fan had been mounted ten feet above my head, attached to a ceiling adorned with gorgeous hand-painted tiles — the kind that make you think, Ah yes, European craftsmanship. Culture. Stability.

Apparently not stability.

The fan had developed what I had generously described as “a minor wobble.” Which is renter-speak for “an omen.” Over time, that wobble fatigued the screws.

And in a display of timing so precise it bordered on theatrical, they chose that exact moment — the three seconds I vacated the sofa — to surrender to gravity.

The heavy, dusty machination hit the couch first. Then the floor.

THUD.

Not a cute thud. Not a polite thud. A sonorous, baritone, “you have been warned” thud.

Had I lingered for one more spoonful, this would be a very different story.

Possibly told by my mother.

“OKAY,” I said aloud to the empty apartment, staring at the wreckage. “I understand. Message received. We are relocating.”

First step: notify the landlord.

Now, my landlord was what we call “entrepreneurial.” Which is to say: deeply uninterested in tenant rights and moderately interested in profit margins.

I informed him that his ceiling fixture had attempted manslaughter and that I would be breaking my lease early. Generously, heroically, I offered to find him a new tenant so he wouldn’t suffer the tragic burden of…advertising.

He agreed immediately.

Of course he did. Why repair things when your near-death tenant will do your HR for free?

Next step: pack.

From experience, I knew that apartment hunting is not a slow courtship. It’s speed dating with paperwork. If you hesitate, someone with better credit and fewer opinions will swipe your square footage.

So, I prepared to pounce.

I was still working at Spring with Ann, who graciously loaned me a stash of industrial-sized Tupperware bins—containers that looked less like moving supplies and more like we were preparing to store a body.

Which, frankly, given the ceiling fan incident, felt on brand.

This was fortunate, because I had…acquired things.

Since abandoning dance, I had developed a new, completely healthy and fiscally responsible obsession:

Costumes.

And Ann—bless her chaotic spirit—did not discourage this. She enabled it.

Not only was I allowed to dress up for Halloween.

I was encouraged—no, challenged—to dress up every day the week of Halloween.

And I do not back down from a challenge.

These were not Spirit Halloween, polyester-in-a-bag situations. No. These were curated. Crafted. Bespoke-adjacent. We’re talking $200 hats. $300 skirts. Accessories that required their own emotional support system.

The money I once spent on dances and dresses now looked like loose couch change.

One year I did a full Disney Princess week:

• Steampunk Snow White
• 1920s Belle
• Renaissance Princess Leia
• 1960s Ariel
• Geisha Elsa

Yes, I learned part of “Let It Go” in Japanese.

No, no one asked me to.

Yes, I performed it anyway.

I began attending Salt Lake Comic Con—now FanX—not to see celebrities in the wild, but because it was a socially sanctioned environment to wear a corset at 10 a.m. and purchase even more corsets.

Was this a replacement addiction?

Absolutely not.

It was a lifestyle.

A lifestyle that required seventeen plastic bins.

Once my absurd inventory was packed, I got serious.

I found an apartment online. Right price. Good location. Garden space. Off-street parking. A porch for my grill.

Reader, I ran there like it was the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

I signed immediately.

Because what could possibly go wrong? The last place only tried to drop a ceiling appliance on my head.

Back at the old apartment, I took pictures and posted the listing. It took two days to find someone willing to take it.

Two tense, sweaty days.

It probably would have gone faster if I hadn’t been so aggressively honest about its flaws. I listed them like I was confessing sins.

“Oh, and sometimes gravity acts unpredictably.”

One thing I forgot to mention: there was no light in the bathroom.

I had solved this with an IKEA lamp.

Which I packed.

I still feel mildly guilty about that. But also? Personal growth.

Two weeks later, my family helped me move across town.

I had been seduced by the garden. The porch. The grill dreams.

What I had not accounted for were the proportions.

The bedroom was enormous. Cathedral-esque. Large enough to comfortably house three queen beds, a harp, and a Victorian fainting couch.

The kitchen was the size of a broom closet.

The living room was…aspirational.

I had to get rid of my couch and my table. Unless I wanted them staged like modern art in my bedroom.

And then there was the floor.

The floor sloped aggressively toward the southwest corner like it was attempting to reunite with the Earth’s core.

Walking through the apartment felt like being back on a cruise ship—tight quarters, off-kilter footing, a constant sense that I might need a life vest.

I was always slightly swaying.

Always a little tipsy, even when I wasn’t drinking.

I briefly wondered if the neighbors were smoking pot and I was absorbing it through the drywall like a contact high sponge.

I felt regret immediately.

Instantly.

Profoundly.

But I had signed a one-year lease.

And I can do anything for a year and a half.

So this would be a breeze.

I took full advantage of the garden.

There were three large raised beds. After politely inquiring about the other tenants’ gardening ambitions (zero), I claimed them all like a tiny agricultural tyrant.

Ann came over to help me plant. I don’t know if she has magical powers or if the former owners were quietly composted beneath the surface, but that garden thrived.

It thrived in a way that felt personal.

Green beans cascaded. Kale multiplied aggressively. Tomatoes swelled with purpose.

My kitties, Betty and Bingley, would follow me outside and roll ecstatically in the warm dirt while I weeded, watered, and harvested what can only be described as an alarming quantity of produce for one single woman with unresolved emotional patterns.

That part was really, very nice.

It’s important to say that.

Because the evenings were… less nice.

At dusk, the neighbors would swoop in like a cheerful, nicotine-fueled coven. They gathered around the fire pit with their cigarettes and their friends, laughing and talking until late into the night while I huddled inside my gently listing apartment, inhaling eau de Marlboro and campfire through what I can only assume were decorative foundation gaps.

Between the aggressively tilted floor and the steady infusion of secondhand smoke, I was essentially living on a very slow boat.

Not a party boat.

More like a Victorian steamship where everyone coughs politely.

I wasn’t high.

I was just… off balance.

Physically.

Existentially.

Structurally.

Then there was the parking.

There were three apartments.

Three spots.

Simple math.

Except the road was a narrow dead end with unforgiving cement barriers at the end, like it had been designed by someone who hated turning radiuses.

Two spots were manageable.

The third—mine, eventually—required a five-point turn and a whispered prayer.

When I first moved in, parking was a free-for-all. Whoever got home first got the good spots. The good spots were also deep enough for two cars.

So if the girlfriend showed up, she would park behind them.

Unless they got the bad spot.

Then the girlfriend decided she could park behind me.

Apparently, my desire to leave for work in the morning was considered… elitist.

Things grew tense.

The guy downstairs claimed one of the good spots and then simply never moved his car again. The tires went flat. The registration expired. Moss began to consider it real estate.

It wasn’t parked.

It was staged.

Out of spite.

To be fair, I had also considered pulling the same stunt, but didn’t have a car to spare.

During this time, the perfectly reasonable owner who had made my requested repairs—foundation repairs excluded, because gravity builds character—sold the place.

To a married couple younger than me.

They were very efficient.

At collecting rent.

Management? Less so.

I took my parking grievances to them.

Their solution?

Assign me the bad spot.

Because I “never had anyone over.”

Damn me and my jaded heart.

I should have been more socially vibrant for better parking.

Then came Christmas morning.

Snow shovel in hand, I went outside prepared to clear the five inches of fresh snow from around my car.

Instead, I discovered a four-foot wall of frozen ice behind all three vehicles.

The LDS church across the street had scraped their parking lot and thoughtfully pushed the entire mountain to the end of our road.

Blocking us in.

Before I realized what was happening, I was already marching across the street.

Shovel in hand.

Women do not traditionally have visible legs in Mormon churches.

And yet there I was.

In pants.

Like a common heathen.

People scattered.

A lone man in a suit was left in the foyer, clutching a program like a flotation device.

“I need the bishop,” I said.

He replied in Spanish that he didn’t understand.

And something ancient awoke in me.

My dormant Spanish skills surged to life like I had been activated by rage.

“¿Dónde está el obispo?” I demanded. Louder. “¡Tengo que hablar con él en este momento!”

He dropped the programs.

Ran into the chapel.

And to his credit, he returned—with a man who introduced himself as the bishop.

He explained that the English ward’s bishop, who had met earlier, would have the contact information for the snow removal company.

Because I was demanding they remove the glacier they had created behind our cars.

He gave me the other bishop’s number.

I said thank you.

And stomped back to my mountain.

I called.

Voicemail.

I left what I imagine was described later as “a spirited message.”

Twenty minutes later he called back while I was attacking the ice pile with alarming fervor.

He explained gently that it was Christmas. People were home. Enjoying the holiday.

Perhaps later that night.

Or tomorrow.

More languages were deployed at this point.

French made an appearance.

I dug for two hours.

Carved out a channel like a one-woman snow Moses.

And finished just in time for the other tenants to casually drive through the path I had created.

Merry Christmas to all.

I moved out at the end of my lease.

When I was talking to my dad about money—venting about how I had to pay a new deposit before getting the old one back—I mentioned that I had been paying on my reduction surgery for over a year.

Making double and triple payments.

And somehow never touching the principal.

Just feeding the interest.

He immediately offered to pay it off.

I assumed he meant I could pay him back instead of the interest-accruing monsters at Credit Care.

He refused.

Would not take a dime.

I think he felt responsible for my plight in the first place.

Genetically speaking.