For example, just as Thunderhoof clip-clopped about her apartment above mine in the last place I lived, making my life a daily, and nightly, kind of hell, so does the family above me bowl all day and all night. No kidding. From the sounds I’ve had to listen to and analyze coming from my neighbors above, plus the sounds I’ve listened to and analyzed from my many visits to many bowling establishments – they’re bowling. As a matter of fact, my audio analyses of my upstairs neighbor is of such thorough detail and study, I’m convinced that they’re using house-balls (two blue 14 pounders, one green 12 pounder, and one, orange-ish/pink 8 pounder), they don’t wear proper bowling shoes, and instead of where a dishwasher should be there’s a Brunswick pin resetting machine. But the power and beauty of buying a home has instilled in me a kind of defiance. You see, just this past Friday Lisa and I won a bid on our first home. And immediately after that we went to a ballgame. We had crappy seats – way up high and cold. But then Dave’s sister called one of our cel phones, informed us that she was in Luxury Suite #54, and had four upgrade passes just waiting for us. We then went to a luxury suite where it was warm, the food and drinks were free, and we watched Barry Bonds knock #662 in a line drive into the bleachers. The Giants still lost, but I was CONVINCED that Barry hit that one out in celebration of Lisa and me getting a home. When the game was over, and I had lost my voice from screaming, “I BOUGHT A HOUSE!” while everyone else was chanting, “Barry! Barry! Barry!”, there was still the bowlers upstairs to listen to. Every night when I come home, and I hear those bowlers, I have to relearn, each and every night, to drown them out. But not Friday night. No… On Friday night I just listened and laughed. I laughed and laughed and danced with my wife around the confined space of our small apartment. The Bowlers were at it again, we agreed, but we outsmarted them. See, pretty soon, in a little over a few weeks to be exact, The Bowlers will be at it again, carrying out their agenda of Aggravating The Smash Family – but to no avail. They’ll be bowling and bowling and bowling, but Lisa and I will be sleeping and snuggling and embracing peace and quiet for the very first time in our lives. Yet another facet of beauty in this whole home buying process is that my house, my LAND, is so big that, if I wanted to, I could put a couple full, regulation sized, bowling lanes just to the side of my home. I could do this, and I could bowl, and I could know that the bowlers upstairs from me this very instant are bowling in tight, cramped spaces – fooling themselves to believe that they are, in any way, preparing themselves for regulation play. Just after I bought the house, I told my parents all about it. They were overjoyed and thrilled and happier than ever. My mother told me, or at least she tried, about how now life is serious – that there’re mortgages, and bills, and taxes, and this, and that… I told her, “I know, but then again there’s no more circling for parking, no more sharing walls with neighbors, no more cramped spaces, and nobody bowling on my roof.” She laughed. I’m a homeowner now, and as soon as escrow closes, I’m a home dweller again as well. No more throwing money down the drain in the guise of ‘rent’. From now on, every time I pay myself ‘rent’, I’m actually investing my money. Hot damn. I’ll be making money as I sleep. I’ll be making money as I sleep in peace and quiet and absolute comfort. Home at last.
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