As a casual observer of people in my age-group who are beginning to purchase houses, I have come up with so many questions about the process. And I don’t mean about adjustable mortgages or taxes or anything that easy. I mean the really REAL important questions.

1. How do you get banks to talk to you?

• Most banks see I’m in a messy custody battle with Sallie Mae (she wants all my money, but I want to eat food and stay clothed at least 5 days a week), and just give me a handshake and a free mint.
• Is there a Match.com out there to match me up with banks? I mean, I’d even consider a Christian Mingle version. The bible says usury is a sin, so at least I could throw that card on the table.
• I once got a first date with a bank who offered me a higher interest on consolidating all my loans as long as I gave him half my paycheck. Actually, in hindsight, that might have been a loan shark. Yep, definitely a loan shark. But at least he was willing to listen to me.
• How do I prove that I’m employed at a stable job? Actually, how do I prove more that I’m so desperate for a paycheck that I will never do anything to jeopardize my employment, no matter the working conditions or wages?

2. How do you decide what kind of house you want?

• What if you get a haunted house? That’s a lot of commitment for a structure that might need an exorcism once every few years. And what if the ghosts are dicks, and just talk about you behind your back like they’re “better than you” for being able to travel between planes of existence?
• What if you get a house in a neighborhood on the verge of being taken over by a corporation’s eminent domain legal battle? Or even scarier, hipsters (Sorry, once you own a house, you are called “yupsters”).
• There’s so many things to consider: high voltage power lines, Indian burial grounds, tap water without fluoride, late-shift mailmen, neighbors with 14 cats. What if the neighborhood children are ALL home-schooled?
• Are these questions you are allowed to ask a real estate agent? Can you ask how many gay couples live in the neighborhood, or if anyone on the block is a registered libertarian? Can I ask when the last act of God was (flood, earthquake, nuclear power plant explosion, plague, etc)?

3. How many YouTube DIY vidoes do you have to watch to become a “registered homeowner”?

• People who own homes seem to know things that I would never even consider. Like when to water the grass. I thought that was rain’s job! Why are we even sacrificing to the water gods if they can’t even do that for us?!
• Or how do I fix the water pressure? Do we just put unrealistic expectations on the water heater and hope it delivers? If I live on a hill, is there less water pressure because it has to climb uphill? Should I choose to live in a valley and rely on gravity.
• And what about decks? How do I know when to treat it? How do I even know if I’m treating it well? Will it thank me by not harboring vermin or traveling hobos underneath it?
• What if I want to build a playground on my property and don’t have any kids? Do I have to register with a state agency for that?

  

4. I’m afraid I’m going to move into a bad neighborhood, so how do I prevent that? And I don’t mean bad, as in high crime. I mean bad as in having terrible neighbors.

• What if my neighbors keep to themselves and I start to form wild theories about their basement and shed? I’ve seen Lifetime movies and “Law and Order.” Their neighbors never know.
• Or even worse, what if I do all that covert ops, and the neighbors really ARE spies, but some other patriot swoops in first and exposes them? Months of going through their trash and NO glory!
• What if my neighbors want to convert me to their religion, or worse, their country club. I can’t golf or play tennis. I don’t even like polo shirts!
• And my worst fear of all: what if the neighbors don’t even like me as a person, and won’t come over to pressure my water heater, or check under my deck, or rain dance in the front yard when I’m on vacation? Would there be anyone left to trust?