The Terrace View Apartments Part 1

I got a great job, right after I graduated from college. And while the job required that I relocate from my hometown of Chicago to sweltering Houston, I was more than willing to pack up and go. Too many of my fellow graduates were stuck working in the food service industry while they waited for a dream job like the one I landed on my first try.

Would you like some fries with that Masters degree?

It was actually quite gratifying, as my dedication to computer sciences had made me into something of an academic superstar in my department, but it also left me a bit of a social misfit. In college, I didn’t have many friends, and even fewer girlfriends. Let’s face it, I was a skinny little dweeb, and most of the college women that I met were looking for someone more substantial than a socially maladjusted computer nerd.

They say that the college years are the best years of your life.

God, I hoped not.

Anyway, it was reassuring to learn that the guy who actually studied while in college would be the one to get hired first. And as for my lack of social ability, I vowed that it was all going to change when I started my new job. In one month, I would be 23, and I vowed to take Houston by storm; I would be a real ladies man with a prestigious job and a bank account to match.

I was going to start a brand new life and it was going to be great!

So I said goodbye to Mike Summers, my one good friend in Chicago. I promised that I’d write, and if anything opened up in Houston, I’d give him a call. I could tell he was jealous of my success, after all, he’d been up for the same job and I’d beaten him. But he smiled and wished me luck and then went back to flipping burgers.

I said farewell to my dad later that night and then loaded everything into my car and headed south. The company had given me a lot of money for moving expenses, but since I didn’t own anything of real value, I didn’t need to spend any of it.

Which meant that I hit the road flush with cash and flush with optimism for the first time in my life.