House Hunting

"We really like old homes" My mom cheerfully told our new real estate agent.

By the end of my first semester I had convinced my school that for completely false medical reasons (extreme O.C.D) that I needed to live off campus. I wrote a very heartfelt essay about how hard it is to live with other people, and how I'd like to keep my raging OCD under control by living in my own space off campus. At my school nobody lives off campus. They want to keep everyone contained in the little circle that makes up my campus so that no one realizes how isolated we actually are. So that no one will realize that there is nothing beyond the Walmart. I didn't feel bad about lying because I didn't feel I should need a reason anyways. Its college, I was supposed to be free. But instead I felt stuck. Most of all though, I needed my dogs. One semester without my dogs was killing me. Instead of twilight posters adorning my 6 x 6 room, I had pictured of my dogs. Hundreds of them. They were even posted on the outside of my door, which looking back probably explains why very few people ever bothered knocking on it to say hello. So as soon as I got an e mail from the clueless but empathetic housing management I called up Tiger Reality to set up a search for my home away from home. My parents came up to foot the bill. However my Mom, not being one to stay quiet, decided to give my real estate agent a nice long list of her preferences.

"We like old homes. Old colonials. Or old farm houses! We love historic homes, that would be a big bonus." I could see her ruining our search before it had even begun.

"She likes old homes." I cut in. "She likes old, ugly homes and I like new ones! New, clean homes. An A frame would be a bonus."

Of course after figuring out a realistic price range for a second house we had very few old or new homes on the actual list. We had tiny, ugly, not new but not old cat piss stained homes that were practically begging to be knocked down. Hideosity after Hideosity. One house belonged to an old woman whose husband just died. It was a sad story, but the fact that creepy medical needles and ash trays were strewn around the house made me feel like cancer was creeping into my body just by standing in it. And yes, it too smelled like cat piss. Feeling defeated but not wanting to make another trip up my mom called a rental agency. They had one place in our price range and could show us in ten minutes, but didn't have the key. We signed the lease that night, on the hood of our car without having been inside the house. It seemed fitting though, since I had accepted my acceptance to Franklin Pierce University without ever having visited the campus. (laziness?)

It was the property that won us over. Our home in NY is nice, a cute old colonial (shocker!) but it's the yard that wins everyones heart. Best yard in town. This was no different. The house is a cute cabin like abode but the yard is a magical forrest. Plants grow furiously wherever the sunlight falls. There are three nearly endless fields that fill with dandelions in the spring, and sleep with a blanket of snow all winter. There is a little garden just for me outside the kitchen window and a thicket of blueberry bushes just beyond that. I'm about to sign the papers to lease it for another year, and can officially say it has become my home.

However there is the issue of a crazy land lady, but I'll save that for another blog.....