Who the heck are you oh mighty Chickenjack?
A little about me and my situation getting into this adventure.
I was born, much to my surprise, on a hot July morn in north-central Arkansas way back in ‘74. Earlier that year, Dungeons and Dragons was released. About a month after my arrival Nixon resigned. Despite reports, I had very little to do with either event.
In 1995 I joined the Army for a six year stint. It was both unpleasant and good for me in many ways. I met one of my best friends and finally decided that when I got out, I would move to the Seattle area. It just sounded like a fun place to live. After living in Sumner, then West Seattle, then Capitol Hill, I started to get the itch to stop paying “the Man” and start saving money for myself. Also the thought of being able to tear out walls and hammer stuff to my hearts content was pretty nice too. The problem was (and I deal with this still) that having spent six years in the military, I felt a bit behind my peers. Most folks my age had wives, kids, houses, investment properties in Maui, 401Ks, mistresses, trained monkeys, and all the trappings of life in the professional world. I, on the other hand, had two very lovely rats and a bad attitude. (Both Sassafras and Ambrosia have since gone on to Ratty Heaven where there are drapes aplenty to chew to bits, of this I am certain) Living on Capital Hill had its perks, sure. The biggest of which was the fact that I could walk to work. The anti-perk became apparent one morning when I noticed several frat-boy looking fellows whom, I couldn’t help notice, were NOT brilliant supermodels with a thing for bald, pudgy, geeks, moving their kegorator into the apartment next to mine. I would give a little leeway if the loud music emanating from my paper thin wall was due to some sexy pajama party that inevitably I would be invited to. “Hellooooo ladies, need someone to troubleshoot an XP machine? I’m already on it!” No, it was usually one of the disks of “Freedom Rock” and continued chants of CHUG CHUG CHUG. The party noise wasn’t that bad from my bedroom, but it made watching TV a bit of a chore. Apartment life being not quite perfect and with the “wow, I am throwing a lot of money down the drain every month” bug a bittin’, a house seemed like just the thing for what was ailin’ me.
Enter my two roommates who will be known by their monikers from these internets, Gobot and Megumi. Gobot and Megumi besides sounding vaguely of a wacky anime comedy, are a brother and sister combination who, despite being brother and sister, actually get along fairly well. Both are as far as I could tell at the time, pretty fair and honest, and they were looking to get out of the apartment life and into a house. Something about apartment complexes being a bit to restrictive on what walls you could tear out and how loud your parties could be…hmm….maybe I should rethink this whole thing. After the process that I plan on detailing elsewhere, I came up with this:
Don’t judge her too harshly. I am convinced there is a LOT of potential in this funky old house. My adventure de la casa can now begin.