We Got The House!

The day we “closed on The House”—in other words the day we promised everyone from the bank, seller, realtor, insurance agent, title company and Chinese traveling circus that we would spend the next 20 years paying for it—we got the keys. 

After work I stopped at our apartment, picked up a bottle of chilled bubbly then rendez-vous’ed with Mr. Wonderful at The House. 

“You do the honors,” he said handing me the keys.

Odd, they felt light and inconsequential in my palm.  Yet these thin pieces of metal were moving us into a new chapter of our lives—from renters to first-time homeowners; from hunters and gatherers to stationary farmers; from a devil may care couple dropping all garbage into the apartment dumpster to Dang!  These devils really care about sorting paper and plastic from watermelon rinds and coffee grounds. 

I put the key in the lock and turned.  The door swung wide and we stepped into the cold emptiness.  The night’s darkness masked the dirt on the floors and the garish paint on the walls letting me momentarily forget about all the work this House needed before we could move in.  With a flashlight I walked into each room imagining: here’s where we’ll eat, where we’ll sleep, where we’ll Google kitten videos on Youtube. 

I opened the French doors and set up two folding chairs by the pool whose still water was bathed in moonlight.  Mr. Wonderful popped the cork on the bubbles and poured it into two coffee mugs, one chipped and one with “Elvis!” blazoned across it. 

“Congratulations,” I said toasting us with my King mug.  Sipping I watched the blinking lights of planes passing in the inky distance and wondered what city—or far away country—that plane was going to and—

Splash!

The champagne bottle pierced the placid surface of the pool and broke my traveling reverie.  The green bottle bobbed in the water like a buoy on a choppy sea, the rings of waves rippling out from it like the endless embrace of parentheses.  Surprised, I turned to Mr. Wonderful.

“They christen boats,” he shrugged.  “I just christened our pool.”  

Let the plane go where it will, let the passengers wander the world, I’m staying here and putting down roots with this man in Our House. 

Champagne never tasted so good.