Home is where you spend your money

After much deliberation and several near-marriage-ending fights, it's done. My wife and I have made an offer on a home.

My wife is thrilled about having a place to raise our family and all the equity we'll be having (or making, or whatever verb you do to equity). I'm just glad I don't have to go house hunting anymore. I was really bad at it.

It's hard to look at an empty house and imagine it as the home you would turn it into. You find yourself thinking things like “yeah, that's a nice banister, but what would it look like with my underwear drying on it?”

Fortunately you have a realtor with you at all times, so these trains of thought never lead to anything that would end up in the papers.

I don't think house shopping should be this way. With other large purchases, such as a car, you're allowed to try doing what you will be doing with the car. You drive it.

I don't think a 20 minute tour, 17 of those minutes being spent talking about school districts, is enough time to know if you will actually like living in a place. I think I should be able to move in for a few days. Give the place a bit of a test-live. It makes sense.

Of course I think I should be allowed to lick any cake I'm considering buying.

This is because I'm not the kind of person who makes life decisions quickly. I dated my wife for two years before we got married. It took me months to decide which college I wanted to go to. But I decided which building I'm going to spend the majority of my life in less than an hour because some one else was looking at it and because my realtor said I could have pie.

I'm too scared to poop now.

There are just too many unknowns.

Things I don't know about this house that scare me:

Is it haunted?

The house is going inspected for structural integrity, various pests and mold. It will not be checked for ghosts. Let me tell you something, if I wake up to get a drink and find myself face to face with the spectral remains of a young lady, hacked to pieces on her wedding night, I'm not going to be too concerned with mold.

What birds hang out in the back yard?

And at what times? While, I love doves and quail visiting in the evenings, I am not a fan of squawking, pooping alarm clocks (this is why I don't have kids). I'm also concerned I don't know the neighborhood outlook on BB guns.

How does it smell in the rain?

We've all been in a house at one point that smells a bit like an old person on soggy days? I don't want to be the house in the neighborhood that everyone checks the forecast before they visit.

Is it haunted?

I'm serious, it really bothers me that I don't know this. If this house is on a Native burial ground, I'm going to be so pissed.

How are the neighbors?

Are the nice? Are they douche bags? Are they robots? Are they robotic douche bags? I know none of these things. The only living being in the area that I've actually met was someones dog who appeared out of no where to smell my wife (I can't blame him, she smells excellent).

I tried Googling all these things, but all the links were to Wikipedia (which I still don't trust ever since the Golden Girls incident). I guess I'll just have to suck it up though. Sometimes a man has to Kirk it up and live where he hasn't lived before. I think I can do this. I think I can make it work.

Unless there are ghosts. Then I will cross those streams so fast, it'll make your head spin.

Steve Shinney is so concerned because his house was built in the 60s. Do you have any idea how many people can die in a house in almost 50 years. A lot, that's how many. Comments and recommendations of a good paranormal investigator are welcome.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I may or may not have taken a second and snorted lasagna out my nose when I read the Golden Girls thing.

Steve said...

Now I'm kind of in suspense, did you or didn't you?

Anonymous said...

I did not. But it was a close call. I was, in fact, eating lasagna at the time I read it.