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I’ve moved twice in the past four and a half months—three times if you take into account that it took us two trips back and forth from Independence and Columbia to make the first move. Last weekend my boyfriend and I moved downtown into a nice, tall, classy building right down the street from Power and Light. Our bedroom view is of Power and Light and of the garden that sits on top of the roof of our over priced parking garage. We like to say that we’re “classy” now. We spent the three weeks before we moved looking at “classy” rugs and “classy” artwork and such, all while promising to keep it much more tidy than the last apartment that was in the basement of a house. We (or at least I) blamed our messes on the fact that we were in a tiny basement that was too difficult to keep clean with two dogs dragging shit from outside onto the tile floor (that we both absolutely hated).

A week into the move I can honestly say that it seems like we will in part succeed at keeping the place cleaner than the last one, however next month I may have to admit that we were silly to even think that. As for the classy décor, well, we are having some issues with that. Brandon has two pieces of “artwork” (in quotations because that is what he would like to call them—not me) that he insists on putting on the walls.

The first: a rectangular piece of cardboard (literally) with four colored sections—green, maroon, orange, yellow. On each section is a big black and white head of a monkey with giant headphones on.

The second: A van with a bunch of shit in it sitting on a beach. This one is in a huge, old, wooden frame. Apparently this has some sentimental value to Brandon and one of his friends. For some reason, I can probably deal with the van picture, but the monkeys—oh how I hate the monkeys! I’ve expressed my concern for the classlessness of the two pieces, and I ask for a compromise of choosing only artwork that we both like, nothing that he detests and nothing that I detest (and I so, so, so do detest the monkeys) but he insists on both pictures because, well, to put it simply: he just likes them.

So, what do I do? Do I give up the battle and place both pieces of “artwork” on the walls, or do I stand my ground (and by “stand my ground” I mean beg him to put them under the bed or back at the old apartment)? Should I just suffer through the monkey’s menacing eyes and the color scheme that will match nothing? Should I offer something (like what?) in exchange for getting rid of the pictures? Is there any sort of fair solution to this dilemma?