So, due to the success of houses 1-3, more internet listings head my way. I pick a fresh round of 3. As I take some pride in knowing where most gang violence is likely to occur in East Nashville, I decided to take a drive around to explore the potential neighborhoods. Small problem: the little sticker that held Australian Karen, my Garmin, in place was affected by the change in temperature and stopped being sticky. As such, I left Australian Karen in the air-conditioned comfort of the rental house. Additionally, I didn’t feel it worth my while to pull over, pick up my phone, and look up the addresses.
Using my stellar navigational skills, I managed to locate 33% of the houses. Found all 3 streets. Only one house. Sweet, going into the house showing completely uninformed.
House 4: This was the one house I found in my pregame study. That’s because it’s literally one minute from where I live now. Nice house. If you like the feeling of being on the inside of a hand-rolled cigarette. Luckily I do like that feeling. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
House 5: This was a quaint little house that was listed for half of the property assessor’s 2009 value. I figured I’d check it out. Nice little neighborhood. We are walking through the house – it’s nice enough. A little smaller than all the other joints we’ve looked at, but looks relatively fresh. Rea has these sheets that have a little more info than the sheets she’s sent me. As we’re walking around the basement of house 5, she reads (aloud), “Suffered foundation damage in the flood.” Anyone know the quickest way out of a strange basement? There’s a reason kidnappers don’t tell their hostages that there was structural damage to the foundation of their dungeon. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
House 6: So, we’re on our way to house 6. I knew where the road was. And, due to my affinity for not getting carjacked, I knew I wanted to turn left onto that road as we approached it. Right it is. [Note: 97% sure they just bleeped out the word “crap” on Holmes on Homes.] So, we drive past the 3rd sketchiest market in Metro Nashville, and arrive at house 6. Rea pulls in the driveway, beside a teenage gentleman sitting in his car. He apparently was a member of the neighborhood watch. Or the Mexican Mafia. So we exchange pleasantries: “Hey, how’s it going?” (silent stare). We take a look around this house – by far, the biggest house I’d looked at. Not bad, but the neighborhood was a little suspect. In fact, the guy in the driveway was probably a little suspect in some felony somewhere. One feature of house 6: the stone mini-amphitheatre in the backyard. I decided it was either a Greco-Roman bathing area or a ping-pong arena. We didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
House 6 gets 2 paragraphs. Big time. So, I liked the house part of house 6, but wanted to check into the surrounding environment. I called up an old friend. And by called up, I mean facebook messaged. [Note: Again, I acknowledge my error, but feel free to harass anyway.] I will await her reply. Potential diseases acquired: Tetanus, West Nile, Emphysema. Naked people seen: 1.
At this point, I’m beginning to tire of being in the background of an episode of Cops, nearly being crushed by a house, and coming up with new ways of saying, “I’m sorry for risking your life, Rea, to look at a house I no longer have any interest in.” My internal conversation went a little like this:
Me: “Rea’s probably getting a little annoyed showing you all these cheap houses in the hood.”
Me: “Well, turns out she’s in the personal service industry. She can suck it up.”
Me: “Yeah, but seriously…”
Then Rea cut me off when she told me that the last person she found a house for looked at 30 houses before she found the one. At that point I decided I’d cut my eyes out before I’d look at 30 houses. Color me encouraged.
The sentence you are reading right now is designed to foreshadow the foreshadowing. Maybe something positive would happen on trip #3.
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