Abode 3, House 1, Years 9.5

I do not recommend closing on a house when your child was born premature and is in the NICU. We had been looking throughout the pregnancy and might not have made a decision on this place. Then my son jumped out at us all. We could have kept looking for another month. Desperation makes people do desperate things. Our landlord was being an unsympathetic ass. There was another house we did like, a bit further east of where we are now. The house was brick, on a quieter side street, seemed solid and the basement was more usable. But flaky owners jacked up the price at the first sniff of two potential buyers.



So we ended up with this one instead. Close to where I worked at the time, there's nothing else around, really. There's a sad Kroger that way, and a sadder IGA where a girl got shot in the face the other. It could have been worse. That whole time was a blur of emotion and stress. There was too much crap, and all of her crap brought to our old apartment weeks before were supposed to move in here did not help next to all of my crap. My parents and sister came to help, they wanted to kill me for having too much crap. I did not feel to good about me either.

Then there were the twin ugly QVC rocking chairs that broke less than a year after we had them. Thanks for adding to the pile of junk. Gosh, being a first time parent was starting out so well.

Yes, it was a mess. And I won't even mention the killer ceiling fan incident.

I got this 82 year old house in the divorce, refinanced it a couple of years later and am now trapped here, underwater. At least the reassessment lowered the value of the house considerably, taxes are incredibly low. There, one advantage. And there is a roof over our heads that does not leak the way the toilet now does, again.

So this is my Scottish Wife's mansion. She's done a great job cleaning up my crap and making it a lovely home. She gets it when I die. The streets of America are truly paved with gold.

No, really. Can I win the lottery and give this house to the first taker?