kicking puppies is bad

When I was growing up my mom occasionally slept in the spare room. And as a kid, I thought it meant my parents were going to get a divorce. Clearly, married couples that didn’t sleep together were DOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMED. She explained that what it really meant was that my dad snoring sounded like a 200 pound, irate, chain-saw wielding howler-monkey on acid. And that it wasn’t always comfortable to be (affectionately) half smothered all night by that irate chain-saw wielding monkey. Sometime, in order to actually sleep, the spare room (or couch) wasn’t a bad option. At the time, I didn’t get it, but now that I’m married, I do. And I wish I could sleep on the couch (or the spare room – if there was one). But there is a problem: I live with my in-laws (let the mockery begin).

It’s amazing how I can feel like an complete success and an absolute failure at the same time. My job title finally says “Senior” before it. I make the equivalent of 2,707,068 gummi bears a year (based on current price of 5lb bag on amazon). That’s significantly more than the average family of four in California. And I just got a full scholarship to law school. By a lot of measures, I’m pretty damn cool. Yes, some moments I feel like a complete success.

But I live in the spare bedroom at my in-laws. And I feel lame. It was supposed to be temporary. We were moving 3,000 miles across the country and had already been approved for a substantial home loan. We needed a temporary place to stay while the home purchase went through.

But it didn’t go through. We put offers on four houses. And each time, there was some major issue problem. Once, the houses was officially on two lots and the bank “accidentally” only foreclosed on one lot so they only owned 1/2 the house. Another time, the neighbor claimed that the actual house was one foot over the property line – and that he could make us tear off the last foot of the house. We didn’t want to take on the legal battle. Each time an offer fell through, and we put in another offer, we thought “Only 30 more days – its silly to move out”. But then thatoffer fell throught too.

Now it is approaching six months. And all I want to do be able to get up and go pee in the middle of the night without having to put pants on first or to be able to sleep on the couch without feeling like the world (or at least my in-laws) are judging my newly established marriage and assuming we are DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED. I want a house dammit (or at least a yurt in the wilderness somewhere where I NEVER have to wear pants).