Cookiebitch: OUR HOUSING CRISIS

So I got a new job. After a year of downers at my current place of employment, including having to let my entire staff go and becoming pretty much insignificant, I decided that my husband shouldn’t be the only one to start fresh and learn something new.

Besides, it would be nice if we were in the same zip code again. As one of my loyal fans pointed out, I’m much less bitchy when I’m getting laid on a regular basis. Although I would venture to say that world peace would be within all of our reach if everyone was knocking it out. It’s just not as easy to bomb people right after an orgasm.

My new gig is as a communications manager at a high tech company. It’s a great opportunity for me to learn new things, not to mention I get more money, more vacation and something I never have heard of before – STOCK OPTIONS. I thought they were an urban myth, but apparently real people get them sometimes. And I didn’t even have to blow anyone. YET.

I’m still in shock I got the job – and that I got it so quickly. Usually the 6-inch hooker shoes and my aversion to talking to people are major road blocks during the interview process. But I think I’m just good with nerds. For the most part, they don’t like to talk to people either. And the shoes just make them blush and stuff dollar bills in my pants. So it’s a good match.

I gave a months notice to my old job, and now we are facing the daunting task of packing all our shit, finding a house to rent in the Silicon Valley, renting out our house here, and trying not to have a nervous breakdown in the process.

Where we currently live there is a flood of rentals available, meaning you have to give wads of cash away and offer free hand jobs just to get someone to even look at your place.

On the other hand, just 90 minutes down the freeway where we are moving there are no rentals available. The handful of landlords with houses that are for rent can pretty much get anything they want and have herds of people begging to do anything to be able to move in. I had to show a guy my boobs just to see a 2 bedroom condo the other day. Actually, he still wouldn’t let me see it. Gravity is a bitch and the girls ain’t what – or where - they used to be.

My husband and I spent the weekend looking at rentals with the hope of finding a small older home for around $2,500 a month. Out of six homes, we didn’t even go inside of three. It may have been the gang graffiti on the fence, or the drug dealers on the lawn. We’re just pussies I guess. But I had packed my Uzi in my other purse.

We did go to one home in a nice neighborhood built in the 1940s. All the other homes on the block had been upgraded and were really cute. This one looked like not even a paint brush had been used since the foundation was poured. The lawn was dead, the fence half falling down.

The landlord was late to meet us, and my husband wasn’t feeling well. He was pale and his lower intestines were rumbling – probably from the fear of getting shot at the last place we went to. But we didn’t know where the nearest gas station was, and it came on him suddenly.

“I’m not going to make it!” he announced, grabbing a box of tissue from the car and running into the overgrown bushes in the corner of the front yard.

I stood on the sidewalk, trying to think of witty one-liners in case the landlord appeared just as my husband was wiping his ass. Would this affect our credibility as tenants, I wondered?

Fortunately, my husband was able to do his business before the landlord showed up. As we walked up to the shabby front door, the landlord asked us to take off our shoes before entering the house.

I had new cowboy boots on. If you have never owned a pair of real cowboy boots, it takes at least a half dozen wearings to break them in so you don’t need a crowbar to get them off your feet. It’s worth it because they will be the most comfortable footwear you own. But in the meantime, you need a stick of butter and a half hour to get through airport security.

I looked inside the threshold. The carpet was the indoor-outdoor kind many people use in garages. My boots were way cleaner – and probably more expensive – than that piece of shit carpeting.

My husband, afraid to bend over to untie his shoes lest he stir up some more bowel action, was not happy either.

“Really?” he growled in my ear. “What could we possibly do to that carpet that wouldn’t be an improvement.”

“Well you did shit on his lawn,” I whispered back.

“Yah, but he doesn’t know about that.” My husband countered, unhappy that I would bring up such a delicate subject.

“But you look guilty.” I said. “He probably suspects something.”

The house was a disaster. The original 1940s wall heater – the only source of heat in the house besides the stove – looked like it would spontaneously combust. The bathrooms were less appealing than the bushes outside, making me think that my husband made the right decision.

The landlord was also an asshole. He told us he wanted first, last, deposit, and we better hurry because more people wanted it too and it was a first-come, first-serve situation. What was our credit like, he asked. What was our combined income? Would we be willing to give a blood sample? Was I a real blonde?

My husband walked outside with the landlord, feigning interest in seeing the “property.” He came to the spot at which he recently relieved himself and looked down.

“What kind of place are you trying to rent to us!?” my husband cried out, pointing at his own feces. “People are taking dumps in your lawn! Is that the kind of neighborhood you want us to live in? We aren’t going to live in this shithole!”

We hustled to the car, trying not to burst out laughing and give ourselves up before we could make our getaway.

The rate we’re going, there’s a good chance we may be homeless. But by god, we’ll still have a good time.