I mentioned previously that I live in my parents’
basement. That’s the life of an aspiring
librarian: 30 and in a basement.
I’d like to talk a little more about what it will actually
be like for you when you’re living in a basement, waiting to find a job that
will employ you at least half-time after you get your MLIS. If
you predict that it will suck, you are so incredibly correct.
I recently came to realize that I’ve been living in
basements for 12 years now. As an
undergrad at the age of 18 I moved into my grandparents’ basement to be close
to my school (I didn’t have a car then), and watch their place when they were
away traveling for months at a time.
After my undergrad days I moved back with my parents while getting my
MLIS, and have been here since. My old
room was now my sister’s room, and my sister’s old room had been converted into
a computer/study room, so I got the basement.
12 years spent living in ugly, smelly basements. Basements are going to be ugly and smelly no
matter how you dress them up, that’s just the way it is. You can dress up a pig, but… it’s still
a pig, isn’t it? You know what else a
basement is like? Cold. Freaking cold. As I type this it is late Spring, and Spring is
actually the coldest time of the year for me.
Winter isn’t that bad because the heat is on, but come Spring the heat
gets turned off and I’m sitting here wrapped in blankets, wearing sweatshirts,
shivering. No one as hot as I am should
ever have to be this cold. There are
people who have literally frozen to death who have never, in their lives, been
as cold as I often am in the Spring. The
only time it’s really nice is Summer, when I’m actually cool while everyone
else is suffering from heat stroke.
I could deal with all of that… I mean, it’s not awesome, and
I’d still walk around with a general sense of sadness on the inside that has
leeched into me from my dank surroundings, but you know, I could deal. Except for the other thing that is a common
fixture of basements that you just can’t fight no matter how much carpet you
put down…
Bugs. Fucking
bugs. Running spiders as big as your
hand. Centipedes. For those of you not “blessed” to live in a
region with house centipedes, just imagine someone took ten long-legged spiders
and glued them together. That’s pretty
much a house centipede. I’d link you to
a picture, but then I’d have to see it myself.
Even pictures of them make me uncomfortable.
I have always had a psychotic, paranoid fear of bugs. I cannot live with having to share a planet
with them. The very thought of it makes
me want to cry. There’s only one thing
that gives me just enough peace of
mind to sleep knowing those things are skulking around: I sleep with a bug net
around my bed. Well, sort of. It’s really less of a bug net and more of a
pretty princess/harem girl kind of thing, but whatever, it does the job. I’ve only seen a spider inside the net with
me maybe two or three times in these past 8 years. More often than that I see them outside the
net.
I always have spray within reach at all times. For the past 12 years I’ve been spraying
powerful bug poisons near my bed, and I’m not sure exactly how well ventilated
these basements are. And I don’t
care. Lex Luther wore a kryptonite ring
until he himself got cancer from it, because he hated Superman that much. I don’t know how many years I’ve taken off of
my life, but it’s something I need to do.
I said I can’t live on the same planet with bugs, and I meant it. I will slowly kill myself to take as many of
them with me as I possibly can. And yes
I realize I’m the supervillain in that analogy, and I’m ok with that. What, am I going to pretend that someone who
has declared all-out war on all bugs—and actually
believes that the bugs are aware of this and are fighting back in
coordinated efforts—is all that sane? So
sure, I’m the bad guy, I don’t care. Say
hello to the bad guy, you cockroaches.
But God damn, am I ever sick of living in basements. More than a decade of this… success is really this impossible? This is the new American way?
Those of you who are just getting your MLIS, I hope you’re
less afraid of bugs than I am.
