I have a running sleep deficit that is surely taking its toll on me. So much so I now look eastward toward Las Vegas with a tempted eye. Not by the trappings you would expect. I am not lured by Vegas’ glamorous promise of excitement and cheap well drinks. I do, however, have a growing familiarity with the concept of getting something for nothing. And it is a doozy!
Real estate in the Bay Area has become the stuff of urban legend. My S.O. has a co-worker who has a friend who just bought an 800 square foot house in San Francisco for nearly six-hundred thousand dollars. Or maybe it was a 600 square foot house for eight-hundred thousand dollars. The truth of it hardly matters when the point is painfully clear. My dream of owning a house in the Bay Area is not just slightly out of my grasp—it is a mirage, a quivering, distant picture made only slightly clearer by squinting my eyes. It lasts for mere seconds before I shut my eyes tight, look away then look back with my eyes wide open, only to see my dream home completely missing from my sun-stroked gaze.
Through a series of events, completely engineered by someone other than myself, I have come to find myself the owner of a very large, newly built, beautifully, appointed house. In Las Vegas. For anyone who knows me, they know that this predicament is the ironic hell of my own creation. I’m an Alanis Morrisette song, a Far Side cartoon, a beautiful girl in a snout-faced, Twilight Zone world. Such a pickle.
I saw the house for the first time last weekend with my Mom, my S.O. and my sister. Walking up to the house, I am accosted by my new neighbor “Ron.” Hand outstretched, Ron introduces himself and his brooding teenage son and tells me he’s just bought the house next to umm…mine. I look around anxiously, waiting for lightning to strike.
Dang. Pangs of attachment start to form in the pit of my stomach. My sister slips the key in the front hole. It doesn’t work. Is it a sign? We’re able to open the garage door. Paint cans and equipment are staged in the corner. My sister leaves to get the right key and my S.O., Mom and I wander to the backyard. It’s a large lot, the third largest in the subdivision. Right now, it’s just a raw, open space. Behind the backyard, is a large trench. I hear they plan to transform it into green, lush walking trails. I see three amigos heads right outside the fence. They look like they’re cracking open pipes in the dirt. “What are you guys doing?” I ask. They look at me and say nothing. My S.O. breaks out in his limited Spanish and asks, “Tubas de agua?” “Si,” they answer back.
My sister returns with the right key and we make our way inside the house. At three thousand square feet, it is six times larger than my one-bedroom apartment in Oakland. It’s got that new house smell. I walk tentatively across the living room and into the enormous kitchen and family room. I feel like a surrogate mom, touring the nursery of the baby I’ll give up to some, other happy couple.
Overwhelmed and anxious, I’m a bundle of conflicting feelings. I want to magically transport it to back to Northern California, a place where you won’t find slot machines at grocery stores and where you still need your PIN code for the ATM machine. I wander into each empty room, reacting at first with an excited, “Ooooh!” but then quickly doing my Larry David-best to curb my enthusiasm at each turn.
I’m in a picture-taking frenzy. I need evidence, proof, of this house. The house I can’t believe I suddenly own. I secretly send telepathic messages to my S.O., Mom and sister, “Please, please don’t ask me if I want to pack up my life in Oakland, leave my friends and family and live in a casino-infested desert away from everything I know and love...don't ask me right now, not in this house…I might agree to anything at this moment…”
Before we pile back in the car, I take a few last pictures of the outside of house, unsure of how this will all turn out.
