So I put posters advertising my apartment up all over the city - in grocery stores, in the unions of a couple of universities, hell, I've even put up fliers in the busses, and I've posted my ad in at craigslist.com. So far I have had three calls and one visit. One stinking visit. One person blew me off after making an appointment, and one person somehow read "spacious one bedroom apt" as "two bedroom apartment". Go figure.

I had someone coming at noon today and I got all excited. I spent Saturday mostly cleaning the place. I bought flowers, scrubbed the floors, dusted and threw a whole bunch of stuff out (I call this pre-packing.) This morning I woke up really early to bake bread, wash the walls, light some candles and generally make the place shine.

At 11 I got into the shower to spruce up my own drabby self, and no sooner do I get my hair all full of shampoo does the phone ring. It was the person due to look at noon, arriving an hour early. What the hell, did she fall back instead of springing ahead? I asked her to give me 10 minutes, and I rushed through the shower, getting dressed in a hurry, running downstairs to meet them (it is mighty cold here in Chicago today) with wet hair. They were apologetic and I was sweeter than Manischewitz .

I was a little breathless as I gave them the grand tour. I don't think they realized that I wasn't the owner of the building, because they were wary about opening closets and peering into stuff, even though I told them to make themselves at home. The girl asked few questions, her boyfriend did most of the talking. They asked to see the laundry room, which I am taking to be a good sign (I mean, if they hated the unit, why would they want to see the basement?). However, they showed no real enthusiasm except to point and smile over the fireplace and the built-in bookshelves.

When they left, they were nice and polite, saying their "thank you's", but that was all. I suppose they could always call me later and decide to rent the place, but something tells me that I won't be hearing back from these people.

At least the place is really, really clean now, and I can show it at a moment's notice. Still, I am really disappointed that they didn't obviously love the place as much as I do. I had a secret hope that the first people who saw it would jump at the chance to sign a lease. I am going to put up more signs this afternoon, and continue postering around the city this week. If I don't have any bites by the 15th, I'll put an ad in the paper.

In other news, I was listening to the Chicago sound track yesterday, and I now have the following lyrics stuck in my head:

You can like the life you're living, you can live the life you like, you can even marry Harry, but mess around with Ike.

I wonder why those particular lyrics stuck?