Call off the dogs, the hunt’s over

The call from Cay came in around 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 9. I

could tell by her voice that she had some very good news. “I found

it!” she said, “I found the house!

“Great,” I said, glad to see the light at the end of the real

estate tunnel we’d been in for months. “There’s only one catch,” she

continued. “It comes with a dog.”

I laughed at the joke and gave my wife my two cents on how much

over the asking price she should maker her offer. The house, it

seemed, has been on the market less than eight hours and the owners

had already received two offers, both more than the asking price.

Our house-hunting had a clear division of labor. Since I was

convinced that I was not going to find the house in which Cay would

live, that task was up t o her alone. I knew what she was looking for

because she had made it very clear. So when the time came to make the

offer, I did not insist on seeing it first.

That may sound very strange to most people, but it worked. For

this house on that day, we did not have the luxury of time, even a

couple of hours. My part of the job was to move the money around so

we could afford the new place.

“Go for it,” I said, once we’d agreed on the offer price. “And

tell them we’re not taking the house without the dog.”

I laughed at my own joke and we hung up.

Four hours later, I was sitting in Mario’s, a Mexican restaurant

in Huntington Beach. With me were three of my basketball buddies,

fresh from playing our 40-plus year-old bodies to the limit. A beer

is helping but I know that in the morning I’ll be wishing for a

chiropractor.

A few minutes after we arrived, my cell phone rang. It was Cay and

she was excited. “They accepted the offer!” she exclaimed. “And

you’re going to love the dog!”

Over the next two months of escrow I rode an emotional roller

coaster. Determined not to let myself celebrate the new house until

escrow had closed, I became tense. For a few days down the stretch,

my neck and shoulder stiffened and were painful. When I mentioned

this to friend Kathy Miller, she said, “Oh, you have escrow neck!’”

I don’t mind moving, having done it dozens of times over a period

of 40-plus years. I will now tell you the secret of a successful

move.

First, pack up the fragile and sentimental stuff and mark it as

such. Then, take one box and fill it with three days worth of clothes

and all your toiletries. This box never leaves your side.

Next, hire three trucks and driver/loaders. One truck will be

designated to take belongings to your new house. The second truck

will take stuff to Goodwill or some such charity, and the third truck

will take junk to the dump. That third truck should be the biggest.

Back up the three trucks to your garage. Get a reclining chair and

a cold beverage and instruct the driver/loaders to empty the garage.

While you sit in the chair, have the driver/loaders pass each item in

front of you. Examine each item and point to the appropriate truck.

Reminder, give the trash truck loader a good workout.

One of the rooms in our new house was supposed be my office. This

was the place where I would be able to think and write in complete

silence or with some Beethoven in the background. The office would

also prevent me from keeping Cay awake at midnight with the

click-click-click of my fingers against the keyboard of my computer

as they had for the past four years.

The office has yet to be organized but I can tell already that I

may have to take a tip from our new dog, Charlie, and start marking

my territory. The office already has the ironing board laid out as

well as many items that don’t fall into any other category in the

house.

Of course, my family thinks they are very clever and that I have

not noticed this “junk creep” in my office but I have. All I want to

do is keep the room from becoming a larger version of the junk drawer

that exists in our kitchen.

But with two growing kids, an active wife and a big, black, dog,

I’m afraid my fight may just give me “junk neck.”

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer.

Readers may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at

(949) 642-6086.