Living in Sin

I have decided to continue posting to my blog. In the past, I have only blogged while traveling. Traveling provides a constant barrage of new experiences for me to comment on, as well as plenty of time to compose my thoughts. Less changing, run-of-the-mill daily life, however, deserves commenting on a lot of the time as well. Speaking of comments, I have turned them on for this blog, which I think means readers can add pithy remarks. We'll see how that goes. Will I still write ridiculously lengthy entries? Well, that depends. See, on the one hand...um…I guess that’s a yes.

Kelly and I moved in together. This is no shock to most of you. We’re renting a two bedroom house (officially, it’s a duplex, but it feels like a house). It’s really nice, with plenty of comfortable room for Kelly, me, Dexter, and (uggh) Lucy the cat. Lucy doesn’t move in until tomorrow, and I dread her arrival. I’m allergic, plus she is a cat and therefore standoffish. I don’t understand the appeal of owning an animal that runs away from you when you want to pet it and rubs itself on you and your computer equipment when you want it to go away.

It seems to me that on a daily basis, moving in together represents a much more significant change than getting married. Largely in the past, those two things always happened together. But then Bon Jovi’s “Living in Sin” came out, and it really resonated with people. Kelly and I successfully traveled together internationally, where we spent 24/7 together for 180 days straight. Sharing a place should therefore be a cakewalk. I have discovered the first counterexample to this assumption. Now that I am not living out of a backpack, I am surrounded with all my very nice things, which each have a place and a proper use (by me whenever I want). And now I’m being made to share, compromise, and try my hardest not to flinch when Kelly mis-throws Dexter’s toys into my speakers. This is what happens when a hyper-organizer is allowed to mono-habitate for ten years before co-habitating. Ah, well, I’ll adjust I guess. Either that or blanket the place with post-it instructions.

A very odd thing happened a few days after we got back from Florida. Late morning, a guy appeared in the front courtyard (I think the fence was already open). I was home alone, and saw him through the window as he waved me outside. He commented casually, “So, still unpacking I see. Howdy, I’m Martin, your neighbor.” He pointed to where he lived, across the street and about three houses down. Then it got weird. He asked if there were any jobs I needed doing that he could help out with to earn $14.50, and barring that, could he just borrow $14.50. My deer-in-the-headlights response caused him to further explain that it was for a tire. My brain was gridlocked. On one side, I had the “good neighbor” conversation going on; on the other side was the “deny all (non-third-world-country) panhandlers” conversation. This guy refused to fit squarely into either category. I told him straight out I thought it was a really strange request, but eventually I went back in and fetched him a $20. He walked toward “his house”, promising to return the next morning to pay me back. Two mornings have now gone by, and I’m officially considering this a $20 enrollment fee for an involuntary class I just took called “Remembering How Not to Get Screwed.” I’m still hopeful he’ll show up one day with my $20, but until then I will lessen my upset by giving him props for inventing what seems to be a clever scam. For those wanting to get in on the action, I have composed instructions:

1. Pretend to be a neighbor.
2. Ask for a specific, odd amount of money that is extremely hard to make change for, and will probably get rounded up by 25% for convenience.
3. Insist the money is for something that sounds very plausible, such as a new tire during the heaviest rain the city has ever seen.
4. Offer to walk over with the person to verify you live where you say you do (knowing full well the bias from number 1 prevents someone from taking you up on it).

Do not, however, offer to work for the money. In retrospect, this is the smoking gun I should have picked up on. No legitimate neighbor wanting to borrow $14.50 offers to work for it. Not unless Kelly and I crossed the border while house hunting and didn’t notice. No, offering to “work for it” is one of the most transparent guilt ploys currently being used to sucker people out of their money. Many years ago, my dad actually stopped and offered a guy with a “work for food” sign a (simple) gardening job, and he declined. And I’m here to announce this no longer upsets me. For many years it did. But then I realized were I in his shoes, and people were willing to pull up to a stoplight in La Jolla and hand me dollars for making a sign ($80 a day by some accounts), I wouldn’t bother raking leaves either. The greatest irony is that the guy holding the “will work” sign is at that moment actually working as a clever entrepreneur. He’s in the yuppie guilt alleviation business. Judging by sheer numbers at most stoplights and freeway exits, business is booming.