The summer after my freshman year of college, I moved back to Austin, Minnesota to work as a waitress at a truck stop like I had the summer before. It was a good job, believe it or not. It was fairly easy, and I could talk to the customers very casually. The tips ranged from bad to poor, but I still managed to fill a plastic lunchbox full of $1s every week, which I brought to the bank with the same joke every week: "No, this is not stripper money."
My parents had moved out of Austin a few weeks after I'd graduated from high school, so I had to find a place to live on my own for the summer. Apartments were out of the question because no one is going to let a 19-year-old with no furniture move in for only 3 months. I can't remember who first suggested this crazy idea, but someone native to Austin suggested I check out the Historic Hormel Home because they sometimes rented out rooms to young women who needed a place to stay for a short time.
Let me interject some history here. Austin is the home of Hormel meat packing, which is where they process bacon, ham, and, most ubiquitously, Spam. The entire town smells like bacon several days a week and there is a 'Spam Jam' every summer, which is just another small-town festival with a funny name. The Hormel family lived in Austin, and one of the Hormel brothers had a big house in the middle of town. That house is still there, and now has a website, should you be so inclined: http://www.hormelhistorichome.org/
So, I checked it out. For $180 a month, I could live in this crazy, furnished house. I signed up and moved in immediately. The rental agreement had its quirks. First of all, the home was subject to tours throughout the day, meaning I had to time my trips to the historic bathroom and leave it spotless after brushing my teeth or showering or whatever. I had to use the servants' staircase at the back of the house. I could only eat at the servants' table in the kitchen, which actually suited me just fine because it was in a little alcove, and I'd always wanted a little breakfast nook-type area to eat my breakfast in.
I could also not have male guests anywhere in the house besides the first floor. I had to refrain from walking through the main part of the house during tours, wedding receptions, and bridge tournaments, which proved to be frequent. I could only use one shelf of the fridge, and one shelf in the pantry. Meals had to be prepared and eaten only when functions were not occurring. As I suggested two sentences ago, this severely limited the amount of time I was able to spend in the kitchen. I wasn't allowed to answer the house phone during business hours, which were 8-5 every day. There was no air conditioning.
The rules weren't the weirdest part of living at the HHH. No, it was the fact that no one else lived there. I was alone in the home after 5PM. Now, you might be thinking, "What's wrong with that? It would be fun to be alone in a big, dark, old house by yourself at night!" Oh, you're not thinking that? Well, neither was I. That house was scary in the dark. There were mannequins and dress forms with historical clothing scattered throughout the house, and a weird, old piano that I was pretty sure was going to start playing itself at any moment. One night after I'd turned out the lights, a bat started flapping around in my room. I debated trying to ignore it or sleeping with the lights on, but eventually I broke the 'no boys on the second floor' rule and called my friend, Mike Porter, who used a tennis racket to scoop it into a Tide box.
The final straw for me was that one morning, after working an overnight shift at the truck stop, I ducked into the bathroom wearing sleep shorts and a tank top to brush my teeth. I was only moments into the process when I heard the clomp-clomping of a tour coming up the stairs towards the bathroom. I froze as the tour guide attempted to open the door, then pounded on it. I sheepishly announced my presence, heard her clumsily explain that people lived in the home, and then waited in silence as they proceeded to the next room. When the chance arose, I dashed into my bedroom and locked the door behind me. As I drifted off to sleep, the tour stopped outside my room. Several of the tour group members attempted to open my bedroom door, which woke me up in a panic. I decided then and there to look at other living arrangements for the rest of the summer.
After about 10 weeks in the HHH, I moved out and ended up moving in with Mary's family. Mary and I had a great time. Apparently, she had thought I was really crazy for living there in the first place. I had just considered myself thrifty and independent.
xo
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