It was our first day of freedom. On April 10, 1998, my best friend Laren and I were anxiously ready to move out on our own. We had been planning this for months, while sitting at Denny's for a few hours at a time. We were trying to figure out how much we would each pay in rent, bills, and food. Where we might live and what kind of rules we might have to keep us from killing each other (as roommates are prone to do) were other issues we resolved. So, now the two sheltered West County girls were going to have a taste of life on their own but not too far away from Mom and Dad, just in case something went awry. The big, beautiful homes we lived in no longer felt big enough for us, or rather, maybe they felt too big for us. We had picked an apartment complex that was only about five or ten minutes away from our parents and our jobs. Now we had the task of moving 20 years of accumulated boxes to an empty, different room. A room that was half the size of our own bedrooms we lived in now. We had been spoiled little girls and we were just starting to realize it. Two bedrooms and two baths seemed like it would eliminate many problems that roommates often have over sharing a bathroom or bedroom. We had a small kitchen, a decent sized family room with a cable hookup, and a living room connecting the other two. Upon seeing the model apartment the management had decorated, we thought our place would be well worth the money. Neither of us thought we could make such a heinous mistake. After all, we were still located in West County or were we?At 7:30 on that moving day morning, I felt anxious to get started. My stomach was screaming complaints at me for being so inconsiderate as to only feed it a breakfast of coffee and nicotine. I knew I had three hours until my friends would be here with the U-Haul, but my nerves were jumping already. I put down my coffee mug in the sink, made a sprint for the stairs, and ended up in my bedroom do...
