everything in its right place

I’ve been on a maddening house hunt. The intensity is equal to barking at opposing players on the football field.

Our current place? Perfect, but it holds a now vacant room that used to be our “office,” which, unfortunately, still costs money.

The hunt has been exhausting, sifting through endless Craigslist and rental websites daily, as if panning for gold, then rifling off emails and phone messages to strangers, only to attempt to sound intelligent when they call back, “Which place is this again?”

“Oh yeah, that place. How’s the area? What’s the parking? Laundry? Gas bills? When can we meet? Let me check with my roommate.”

We’ve seen a heap of dives, been stood up three times (gosh!) and once told, “Our landlord is the worst landlord ever. He threw away half our stuff. And this area is kinda ghetto, someone tried to steal my friends car and shot at him.”

Great.

Another landlord told me about an exquisite paint job in her glorious apartment; the way she described it sounded like it would cost a fortune. “I think this is going to be a gem,” I confidently told my roommate Barry on the way there, watching his GPS. Turns out, it was an OCD painter who rented the house before us, who allegedly stopped paying rent, went insane and meticulously painted every square inch of the apartment in wild patterns of purple and green, even pink.

As you can imagine, the often-fragile, single male ego clashes with such a color scheme.

However, there’s something about the east side of this city that’s stolen my heart, and I was determined to continue living in it. Two nights ago I was peddling my bike around the eastern neighborhoods at dusk, pen and paper in hand, scribbling down phone numbers and addresses and little notes (“looks abandoned,”) like a doctor penning illegible prescriptions.

And then I saw her.

She was an old mansion, though we would only take a piece of her. She was perfect: first floor, great area, affordable, available, amenitiable (new word).

I scheduled a viewing for yesterday at 4:45.

At 4:25, the owner called. “Sorry, the place has been rented.”

“Oh,” I said. Not much else to say. I’ve drank plenty of rejection.

It left me angry, exhausted, pissed about perceived perseverance without any tangible results, calling out to God for a solution.

“Okay, one more round of Craigslist,” I reason.

And then I saw her: But she was a new “her.”

“Hi, I’m calling about the place in Cherry Hill,” I said. Now an expert at asking the proper questions to avoid monumental disappointments and pink walls, I was walking through it within 20 minutes of the phone call.

And I knew it was finally her. I called Barry.

“I say we rock this one,” I said. Maybe I didn’t deliver the message with the three C’s (calm, cool, collected). It was probably more like, “Hey dude, this place is tight and I’m tired and I think we should rent it.”

Anyways, back to the story.

At 9 p.m., we walked through: Wood floors, tall ceilings, spacey, amentiable, vintage.

“Let’s do it,” Barry says.

The check was written, handshakes were shared, and everything has its right place.

“Nice work,” Barry says.

“It's grace, man,” I reply.

And it is.

Thanks, Everything.