We closed on our new house after buying the place we would live in forever two other times already.

We closed on our new house last Friday.

Now we have some first world problems to deal with. First world problems are problems that are the most serious and really adversely affect our lives more than anything else.

Although we closed Friday, and own the house, we don’t take possession for four more weeks. The previous owner needs time to get out. She has lived in the place for forty years, raised her three kids there and killed her husband there.

If we want to be scientific about it, her husband died of “nature causes”. But after meeting her, I feel comfortable in saying that after 40 years of marriage, he had had enough and died.

The next morning we went to the house to meet some contractors to get estimates on having the floors redone and the bathroom redone and basically the entire house redone. We have never owned a place that we haven’t fully remodeled. How could we? Everyone else has really bad taste.

I’m not the kind of person that comes home from work and then works on the house. I hate it. It’s just not me. It also takes too long.  I layout the plans, buy the stuff then bring in a crew and have it finished. Just  like sex.

While I was between contractor appointments, Anna took the kids to the park and I stayed behind to wait. The previous owner had to tell me a lot of things.

I learned that she has two Satellite dishes for TV as well as a cable box in every room of the house. She is the only person living in the home.  Maybe she leaves each TV on a different channel because she lost all the remotes.

 She also has two active phone lines and a cell phone. She got the second phone line when her kids (who are now in their forties) were in high school because they were always on the phone.  She also uses twenty dollar bills as toilet paper.

The kicker came when she was talking about how much she loved the schools, especially because of the diversity.

 Then went on to tell me that her son, “would bring home someone different every day. One day a black, one day a Chinese, one day an Oriental, one day who knows what. I asked him, ’Couldn’t you give me some kind of warning?’ ”  

I don't think it was her that needed the warning.