Movin' on Up (To the Least Side)

  
    I am moving at the end of November back to the place I once was.  I am moving to an apartment with an identical floor-plan to the one that I had previous the place I live now.  Same floor-plan but in a different apartment complex.
    I absolutely love this floor-plan.  The only thing I have against it is that the washer/dryer connections are outside, in the storage room on the patio.  But all the other great things about this apartment (I'll try not to bore you with them) easily make up for this minor inconvenience.
    So, why did I move out of this best of all possible apartment worlds?  Well, let me tell you.  The complex that housed the floor-plan I loved, was practically a drug and crime den.  There were several clues that should have alerted me to this.
    First, when we moved in, the rest of the building was empty.  And there were many empty units around the proximity of it.
    Second, our apartment backed up to a creek, which was, we thought, a rather nice feature.  Unfortunately, on the other side of the creek was another apartment complex.  This complex had a mobile police station, a "cop Winnebago" if you will, that would be parked on the property overnight.  Why?  Because this complex had one of the highest crime and murder rates of all the apartment complexes in Dallas.
    And last, but not least, not long after we moved in, we obtained a washer and dryer.  While hooking up the vent tubing, we found a used crack pipe in the outlet.  Remember, the utility connections were located outside the apartment in the storage facility on the patio.
    Now, this may sound funny after reading all this but, this was not really considered a bad neighborhood.  For some reason, though, this tiny section of the neighborhood, encompassing these two apartment complexes, acted as some sort of haven for drug addicts and dealers.  A sort of town guild for the illicit drug profession.
    So, as soon as our 12 month lease was up, we high-tailed it out of there to the peaceful confines of Mckinney, a quiet, but fast growing community just north of Dallas.  And we have loved it here for most of the 4 years we've been here.  Only recently, about a year or so, have things begun to spiral downward from happiness towards despair.
    Most of the reason has to do with a major turnover of residents in and around our building.  While some of the new neighbors, like the ones right next door to us are very friendly and considerate, a good portion of them are loud, rude, and trashy.  While one or two bad apples don't spoil the whole bunch, they can sure make the apple cart smell rancid.
    So the great move adventure begins, as they all do, with the worst part of it all -- packing.  Man, I really hate packing.  Generally, because there is so much of it to do.  You see, the glorious Mrs. B is a bit of a hoarder.  Everybody has their vice.  This is hers. She keeps everything she ever gets under the premise that "she's going to use it someday."  Well, as we all know, "someday" rarely ever comes and if it does, the thing we kept is so old and out of style that we don't want to use it anyway.
    In her defense though, she has done a valiant job of trying to downsize.  It's just that it is not quite enough.  It is like the old adage of pissing on a forest fire.  But at least she's trying.
    Why am I telling you all this, you ask?  No reason really.  Just my way of procrastinating.  Which is my best vice.