House Hunting

Looking for a new place to live is equal parts excitement and dread. There might be some dragging of heels and measuring of bathroom counter space as well.

Two of my friends from college, MG, KS and myself, began yesterday, a looking for a house to rent in March. We've already established that my roommates from college are all either married or engaged. MG and KS lived together for two years with EC, another friend of ours who will be married come April. We are all each other has!

I seem to have become a master of melodrama.

We have similar expectations and standards for a residence, and the first house we looked at yesterday was met with a resounding "eh, no thanks" from the three of us. We started combing the neighborhood and stopped by an open house that looked inviting. We were met by a cheery realtor clad in a plaid patchwork broom-skirt, denim vest and cowboy boots, and there really wasn't any turning back at that point. KS and I started poking around the four bedroom, two and a half bathroom SFR while MG got inundated with information on the property. While KS and I were commenting on some of the more obvious facts: the hand-scraped wood floors, the big laundry room, the unfinished closets, the lack of window shutters, etc., we tried to plan our escape.

In our attempts to "save" MG, we quickly figured out that barring a ringing cell phone or a random midday mugging incident, we were trapped. It was worse than trying to evade an inebriated suitor at a crowded bar; where friends can usually get The Signal and swoop in with a diversion and a fire escape ladder. In my imposed quiet-time, I had ample time to pity Plaid Patchwork's husband. He's probably one of those people who took a public vow of silence because hey, if you don't have the opportunity to say anything, you may as well get credit for it.

We were saved by another woman who stopped in to see the house, gave MG the quick 60-second tour that included a step in to the shower to show her just how low the shower-head was placed. I estimate that anyone taller than 5'2 would have to hunch to wash their hair in there. MG climbed in and said "oh good, I like to keep my shoulders clean."

Worn out by the monologue and the overcast 30-degree weather, we detoured for soup, coffee and gelato at Central Market. MG and I continued on to scope out a different neighborhood from the safe warmth of my car, and ended up in Preston Hollow. If you aren't familiar with Dallas geography, I'll go ahead an inform you that it isn't a neighborhood where you rent a home. Unless you're comfortable scaling fences to borrowing cups of sugar from Ross Perot and Mark Cuban, in which case rent your little heart out.

We even managed to the 411 on George and Laura's new digs and took a lap around their cul-de-sac. We somehow went from looking at little 1300-square-footers to comparing and contrasting Dallas estates, and hoping that someone would randomly run outside, flag us down and beg us to house-sit for them while they spend the next year seeing the world from their hot-air balloon.

A girl can dream.

"Home is where your story begins."
-Annie Danielson