Yes, one day a serial killer WILL hack me to bits, for I am so trusting.

So we were knee deep in house hunting when I responded to the ad on Craigslist. We had seen a dozen or so houses, and folks, it was getting sad. Mr. Meat and Potatoes was of the mind that whatever we were moving into was going to be "it" - as in, this is the house I am stuck with until I go to a nursing home or the men in white jackets cart me away, which frankly I was thinking could happen at any minute. But if I was gonna have to live in this house for the better part of the next fifty years, I sure as shit wasn't gonna buy one that didn't suit me. Also, I wasn't going to buy a "fixer upper" and spend tens of thousands of dollars to live in rubble for the next ten years of my life. I know us. We don't do well with projects. We'd talk about a new kitchen every night for nine and a half years, all the while I'd be cooking in the pit from Silence of the Lambs. And then we'd say "screw it" and move again.

So I was discouraged. There were no houses in my price range that suited both of our desires (basement, fireplace, nice open kitchen, good yard, good neighbors, 3 plus bedrooms, yada yada).


I saw the price on the Craigslist house, I saw the four tiny pictures, and I thought it must be a scam, like when they tell you you can buy a 2011 Yukon for 5,000, but just send a money order to a PO box in the Sudan first. Because this was far more house for less money than anything we'd seen so far.

Mr. Meat and Potatoes was in Kansas City with his brother and the baby visiting his dad, so I went to the appointment by myself. I won't lie. I figured there was a fifty percent chance I was going to be hacked to tiny bits and a fifty percent chance I was about to see my future home. I was willing to take those odds, if the house turned out to be as good as it appeared in the ad. Mind you, this house is for sale by owner, so that's a bonus too, if it turns out to be for real. But there is no way it's for real.

I went anyway, and called my family on the way to say my farewells.

And then I called them after, and said, "I found our house."

The house was torn up. No carpet, messed up walls, smelly dog smell in the basement. Any normal buyer would have run screaming into the night. But I am not a normal buyer. I looked at the pool, and cried inside, for it was so beautiful. And the seller, a decent-seeming guy, swore he was having new paint and carpet installed ASAP. The kitchen was what I was looking for in size and shape if not in style, and every. single. thing. on our list was in this house, and then some. Basement, check. Four bedrooms, check. Three bathrooms, fireplace, check check. Master bath, walk-in closet, check. And, the added bonuses of wet bar and pool? Hell to the yes. Too good to be true? Of course.

I asked the seller if he would take an offer contingent on the sale of my home, which was, of course, still not even really on the market. He fell down laughing and peed himself.

I mentally kissed the house good-bye, because I knew it would sell before we could ever get ours on the market, let alone actually find a person silly enough to buy it.