When we bought this house, it came with a sports court. That’s pretty unlikely, that we’d own a sports court. First, the bombast to own property that’s big enough for one. Then, the idea that I’d be out there in my shorts, practicing. Worse, we let the court go idle and overgrown with some brown algae, and now I have to pay the neighbor kid to pressure wash it.

I had gotten cynical about home buying by the time we saw this house. I said Look, it has a pencil sharpener! I’m in.

They had chickens and a chicken coop, a play set, a hot tub, a fire pit, a trampoline. The owner had a comic, harried look about him as he wound up the hose on the back patio. He was going white on the side burns, sleep-deprived, mumbling. A foreshadowing to my future self, cleaning out the chicken coop, making sure the dogs don’t chew through the dry-wall, checking the levels in the hot tub, fussing.

I sat at the base of a tree looking west last night as the sun set, admiring the seed pods and bugs circling in the air, remnants of cotton wood blooms and wisps as the wind kicked up. The girls circle the sports court on rusty bikes that need oiling but never will, I tell myself to relax and just enjoy it.

Categories: humor

Tags: home ownership, parenting, the suburbs