Moving Saga: Part 2

The one where we go desperado trying to find a house.

A couple of days after landing, we took off to South Carolina to find what would be our new home. Having survived the flight with our babe, it was onto the next piece of the wild ride—a piece that should have been bubbling with happy enthusiasm for the future. But wouldn’t you know, fresh anxiety was abound with this, too, as there was a kicker that came along with house hunting: we had to find and secure a place to be ours within a week’s time. With less than 48 hours at our disposal, we’d HAVE to find something that (hopefully) would be a place to settle into for more than just a little while this time.

And this wasn’t the house hunting we had become used to, either. We’d be going from 3-time home ownership to renting long-term for a beat. I just couldn’t stomach the thought of buying in an inflated market that would inevitably pop at some point, let alone we didn’t have the closing time to buy a house even if we’d wanted to. On the moving clock, we were down to days, not months, and gearing up to face the options in which I could raise my daughter in for the first years of her life was daunting, exciting, and terrifyingly almost too big to hold all at once.

We scoured every part of the city and surrounding areas, fueled by 7000 gallons of Starbucks cold brew and Stella’s two-cents of happy shrieks from the backseat. The whole treasure hunt was one for the times, full of rental price gauging, properties that were listed one second and gone the next, and plenty of catfish places that interestingly enough did not match listing photos.

But in the final hours, we miraculously managed to find the perfect abode. As we drove away, all I could think about was just how much I loved it and the fact that it was only an hour and a half inland from the coastal beauty of the Lowcountry. With stars in my eyes, I daydreamed about planting palm trees in the front yard and stringing up Christmas lights along the front shutters every December.

A surprise was in store by the time we made it back down to my parents’ house only 3ish hours later. The property manager informed us someone had already put an application in on our perfect place, so the claim for it was in the process of being laid. Smaller properties that were much like the one we wanted were possibly available, and though reluctantly we agreed we could be okay with that, I was grumpy about it. The panic set in that the alternate properties weren’t so great, and we’d probably end up finding ourselves moving AGAIN in a year. We were exhausted and mired with defeat, but you have to find a silver lining that at least you’ll have a roof over your head, right? Being down and out about not getting what we wanted is a first-world problem and overtly dramatic, isn’t it? Well, sure, but the thought of having to move AGAIN and still be unable to finally settle into a life for a minute just made me want to cry and take a Rip Van Winkle nap.

My mother always drilled into me growing up that “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”. And it became the way I (annoyingly so to many) lived my life in a variety of situations. Job follow-ups, personal disagreements, college projects, book deals, and just about every interaction with anyone. In the squirrely words of Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove, I have never had a problem squeak-squeak-squeakin’.

The aforementioned anecdote serves a purpose to round out this post with what actually ended up happening with the seemingly elusive perfect house. After about 48 hours of constant emails, phone calls, and chats with the property manager and every single one of her assistants and co-workers, we got the best, most unexpected news.

They were giving it to us. They were giving us the house we wanted.

We were happy, of course, but slightly confused. It had been confirmed more than once that the house was being given to someone else who’d gotten to it before us, so how had that changed? We asked the manager.

And in her most polite way of it, she answered, “You know, you guys were just much more responsive than the other applicants.”

AKA: “Give them the damn house so they’ll leave us alone already.”

Squeak, squeak, squeakin’, squeaker, sqeakin’.

Part 3 on its way…