Some cliches are cliches because they're true.
I actually think the previous line is a cliche. Not sure yet if it has joined the pantheon of cliched phrases, but I've said it enough in my own life that, if it wasn't a cliche before, it damn well is now.
On the point of cliches, I'm writing about one in particular here, and it should be obvious from the title. The title is an allusion to the cliche in question, and most readers living in the western hemisphere who were born between the last burning of the Library at Alexandria and now should be familiar with it:
When it rains, it pours.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I decided to purchase a piece of land (well, building in this case) to call my own. It was my realtor's idea, and, given that I had been living in a room of his house for the previous couple of months, he had many opportunities to influence me on my decision making.
4:00 AM on a Saturday, for example, by means of an announcement just outside my door delivered through a megaphone.
Eventually, it was no longer a choice. It was a desire that had been programmed into my very being by various novel methods of communication and psychological torture.
I bought a condo because I wanted the pain to stop.
This action, however, meant to stop the pain, simply led to a whole new kind of pain. Still the hurty kind, but of a slightly different aroma. As a lifetime connoisseur of pain, I am familiar with many shades and hues of the stuff. This one was new.
While I'm not entirely certain, and while I'm not a financial expert, I suspect that part of my difficulty may have been rooted in the fact that I'm twenty-nine years old (but I look twenty-two - seriously - even without the makeup), I didn't graduate from high school, I didn't graduate from college, something went seriously wrong at the Social Security Number factory which dropped a chunk of my father's credit card debt on my own credit report, and, when pulled, my credit indicated that I had an outstanding debt of nearly $40,000 to a company in California that had been paid off years ago (they just forgot to remove the ding on my credit report like they promised).
Made getting the loan a little tough.
Like I said, I'm not an expert, but I think that might have been it. Who knows, though. It might have just been a late library book or something.
Fortunately, all struggles aside, and some incredible work done by my realtor and my lender, I am now the owner of a condo (in reality, the bank owns it, but I'm told this is somehow different from renting).
I like the place. It's in Bellevue, which was a compromise between living near the Microsoft Redmond campus and living in Seattle proper. I wanted to be in the city, but I didn't want the two hour commute. It has something to do with the way long commutes make me want to put my car in neutral, get it rolling on the freeway at about three miles an hour (the average speed of traffic in Seattle), get out of the car, run ahead, lie down in front of it, and let it slowly roll over my head. The only reason I haven't done this yet is that I'm worried that, at Seattle Traffic Speed, my car wouldn't be going fast enough to actually roll over my head. It might just hit my face and then stop, doing cosmetic damage to my beautiful visage, but leave me fully cogent and able to lead a regular life (if you don't count the screams from children as the disfigured monster I would become walks through the aisles of the local supermarket).
That's why I chose Bellevue. Because I want to remain pretty.
The condo itself is a real winner. I want to high-five it whenever I get home and be all, "Good job, condo!"
The only problem with it is the carpet, the color of the walls, the lack of hardwood floors, some of the cabinet work, the missing countertop I paid for, some wiring issues in one of the bedrooms, a lack of any coat racks in the closets, a screw that came loose in the washing machine, the Abominable Refrigerator (it's, like, really big), the bulbs that were already burned out when I moved in, the lack of air conditioning, the sloppy paint work, and the lack of sound-proofing between units.
Aside from that, I honestly can't complain.
Over the next month, I plan to have the carpet removed, replace it with a layer of sound-proofing and hardwood floors, paint the walls a dark shade of Burnt Sienna, have the cabinets done right, get my countertop, have the wiring issues in one of the bedrooms fixed, get some coat racks installed, have someone figure out why my washing machine fell apart the first time I used it, get the Abominable Refrigerator swapped out for something a little less Abominable, get the burned out bulbs replaced, buy air conditioning units for a couple rooms, get the paint work fixed, and then find my neighbor who's playing the shitty disco at 3:00 AM and punch him in the face in time to the low bass beat of his music until he surrenders and signs a document written in his own blood stating that he will never again interfere with my peace.
In the meantime, I'm just trying to get used to the idea that I'm a landowner. Granted, my land is sort of hovering since it's on the second floor, but it's still land of a kind. I keep thinking about how, in Olden Times, this would have given me the right to vote in 'Merica. Given the stellar presidential choices that have been presented to us over the past few years, I kind of wish owning land would absolve me of the responsibility to choose between the lesser of two stupidities, but it doesn't.
It just lowers my tax liability. I can live with that.
The strangest thing about it is that all the stuff inside it is mine. I've always been a renter, so I've treated all the various bits of the places I've rented, well, as though they belonged to somebody else.
Things are different now. If I want, I can rip my sink out of the counter and drop-kick it off my balcony when I get home tonight. I'd have to go down, pick it up, and then throw it away if I wanted to avoid a litter charge, but this is my right. Nobody can stop me from drop-kicking the sink off my balcony because the sink and the balcony are both mine.
MINE.
I own that shit, and t'ain't nothin' you can do about it.
I can stack dead possums in the closet without having to pay a pet deposit.
I can bleed all over the carpet without having to pay a cleaning fee.
I can pee on anything I want.
After all this time... after all the renting... I finally understand what land ownership is all about.
It's not about tax benefits. It's not about profit.
It's about freedom.
It's about being able to run over your carpet with a riding lawn-mower and not get in trouble.
It's about being able to cut a hole in the wall between the two bedrooms that is an outline of the headical profile of Jesus Christ.
It's about being able see what happens if you switch all those hoses behind your toilet around in neat new ways.
It's about being able to throw a feces decoration party whenever you want.
I don't even know what a "feces decoration party" is, but I can throw one.
The space between the floor and the ceiling, and from wall to wall, is where I get to make my own reality, and if it's going to involve a feces decoration party, then...
...so be it.
Taste the freedom. Smell it on the wind. Roll in it, jump in it, and throw it over your head to see where it lands.
Last weekend, I threw it up, and it landed on me.
I am a free man.
And you are all invited to my feces decoration party.
BYOF.