Labor Day Weekend or Back to the Future

In honor of LDW we took a break from the housing market to enjoy being relatively young and unencumbered by school work for the first time in years. We began our break from the housing carousel by looking at houses on Saturday morning with our real estate agent after exchanging a couple of e-mails at 8 A.M. Nothing says taking a break from something like continuing to do that exact same thing.

Back to the future: Two months ago, in the early stages of our housing search, sometime around when this blog began, we looked at a house that I loved that S claimed was haunted. Her claim seemed a bit unsubstantiated as their was no sign of the Stay Puff (sp) Marshmallow Man or that creepy quiet talking kid who got what was coming to him in Pay it Forward. Kidding. Kidding. Thus, despite the amazing built-in bar in the basement, knotty pine included as well, S was not crazy about the house.

Unquestionably the first Back to the Future movie is the best. In most cases the first movie is the most inspired and subsequent iterations fall pretty far short. The following titles started well and went out with with the trash. The Matrix. Die Hard. The Land Before Time. Transformers. Karate Kid. Teen Wolf. Weekend at Bernie's. Star Wars (any of the latter movies). We hadn't seen cars that could fly in the nineteen eighties, and we didn't realize how cool Huey Lewis was until we saw someone skateboarding on the back of cars. The Freudian overtones with his mother, the audacity and charm of the first movie make it the best.

Going back into the house was like rewatching BTTF. However, this time S saw the house in all its glory. I could hardly keep her from mixing drinks behind the bar and punching holes in the kitchen wall to make a pass through. I have no idea how much a pass through costs, but I'm guessing I can do it with a large hammer and a lot of pent up frustration. Contractor my as-. I can handle punching a hole in the wall. And why? So we can talk to each other while she's in the kitchen? Is this a good idea? I kind of like being able to read a book or watch a game while she cooks. Is it too fifties of me to assume that she might enjoy cooking in the kitchen by herself and humming a nice song while birds flutter about? Note: We watched Enchanted tonight to counteract a movie we'd watched earlier in the evening. A movie, Goodbye Solo, that I liked, but S was threatening to ban me from queue making after its sad ending.

BTTF2 presents you with the hovering skate board and you're immediately sucked in to believing that you're actually seeing something cool. But what the second movie lacks, besides charm, interesting plot developments, Freudian complications, disappearing fingers and Huey Lewis, is dystopia. The future is always bleak. People are not unhappy individually. We've always been taken over by a race of machines or some sort of emotional control serum. That's pretty much what we all realize we have to look forward to. In no way shape or form does BTTF2 address this obvious universal theme: the coming great uprising of machines/overlords/aliens. The irresponsibility of the movie, and the lack of Power of Love, make this movie infinitely less appealing than its predecessor. And the only people who still think of it as the best of the trilogy are, I think it's fair to say in a blanket statement here, trapped in some sort of misguided dream of childhood fantasy of hovering skate boards and has not embraced true adult sadness.

Bright side of the house: Very clean and well taken care of by an elderly lady.
Down side: The furniture is circa 1950, so it occasionallly makes it hard to move in our somewhat crappy IKEA furniture and imagine how hip it will be.

Bright side: It has a bar in the basement.
Down side: I've never mixed a drink in my life.

Bright side: It has a small back yard.
Down side: It has a small back yard.

Bright side: The house is in good shape.
Down side: The house is in good shape which means we can't jack up the resale value.

The third BTTF movie does a fairly good job of wrapping up the whole plot line. And, we get introduced to the Wild West, which is infinitely more interesting/less fraught with sad dystopian themes than the future. The viewer also gets the satisfaction of seeing Marty introduced into the adult world as he loses Doc to the Wild West, (pardon me for calling it that) to a woman that he loves.

Ergo; we're putting in an offer on a house that I would have been happy to put in an offer on two months ago. However, far be it from me to even mention that fact out loud or in print. (Excluding here). I'm guessing that at the last second a new bidder comes in and decides that this house, which has been on the market for quite some time, is the house of their dreams.

Reality. The house is in fact simultaneouly the 1st and third BTTF movies. For me, it was love at first sight, riding skate boards on cars and listening to Huey Lewis. For S, it was the third BTTF. Note: She prefers the second, but I pretend like she doesn't for the sake of our marriage. The one where you realize that you can't have everything. Perfect neighborhood, a million cabinets, a life with Doc next door, but that what you have is pretty good. And sure, you've gone through a whole lot of crappy houses/problems in the future/past school districts, ideals formed of where you want to live in a city, and you're going to be okay in this new place.

Author's note: Again, I can't wait until we don't get this place a week from now. It's going to be awesome!