Laura’s Hobby….

As I sit and start to write this I am looking across my living room. I was 39 years old before I managed to become mature enough to save up enough money to buy my own home. Before I met Laura she was already more mature than I am and owned her own home, I lived there, I paid the mortgage when Laura stopped work and for all intents and purposes it was my home, but I didn’t own it.

So all that being said I am quite proud that I managed to buy a house here, I remember the day we signed the paperwork and I actually felt like a grown up for 20 minutes. Home ownership anywhere comes with bills and things you don’t have to worry about when you rent and after 10 months of owning this house I’ve had enough.

We live in a gated community, it basically means that we just lock the gates and live in this bubble like something out of the Truman Show. It is a complete illusion of safety. Literally anybody can get in through the gates at any time, by either tailgating the car in front when they break in or walking through one of the many pedestrian gates that don’t shut properly. These are the responsibility of our Home Owners Association

It’s great though because for this imaginary other world we live in I get to pay the princely sum of $700 a quarter. $700 a quarter and I don’t actually know where it goes. This doesn’t bother me most of the time, I don’t have to think about it, but today I had to pay it and I am pissed off about it. I started to think about what I get for this obscene amount of money and I got more and more pissed off. To the point I went online and found the budget for the HOA to understand exactly where the money went. 45 minutes of looking through spreadsheets and I am still none the wiser.

They did put up some no parking signs outside my house which everyone completely ignores and instead parks across my drive so Laura can’t get off and then has a massive “venting” session at me about.

The $700 a quarter HOA fees are the least of it to be honest. Constantly having to repair things is getting on my tits as well. Air Conditioning prime example. We had an issue with our unit the other week, someone came round and quoted me $6,000 to fix it. I wasn’t having that, so I bought a wet vac with the intention of fixing it myself. I do not know the first thing about ac units, I have not looked at it and I have no intention to to be honest.

Today though there was the typical Armageddon like storm about 3 o’clock and lightning struck really close. I know it was close because I was having a little afternoon nap now I have absolutely nothing to do with my days and it woke me up with a bit of a start. About 3 hours later I was sitting right where I am now and realized it was hotter than a McDonald’s Apple Pie. It turns out the air conditioner was broken.

Somehow I managed to fiddle around with some wires and got it back working, but it is an all to timely reminder that I am going to be sinking another $6k into this house pretty soon, the new TV is going to have to wait.

It’s OK though because we have a way to raise the money, that doesn’t involve me selling a kidney or me being one of the first people to trial an experimental COVID vaccine.

Some people might remember Laura fancies herself as a bit of a wheeler dealer, a saleswoman. I have made a living selling one thing or another for the last 20 years, Houses, Timeshare, Recruitment Services, but Laura will tell you to this day she is the best salesman in this house. She sold a load of our crap before we moved to America on Facebook and in a world where she could have any hobby or activity imaginable to fill her free time she has taken to selling other peoples shit. This has been going on for about 3 weeks now.

As I peer over the top of the laptop I can see a cardboard box and two full trash bags of other peoples shit. To be clear, this isn’t stuff other people wanted to sell. It is shit they don’t want, would happily have thrown away and is now sitting in my front room while Laura takes occasional photos and sticks on 3 selling pages. We live in a country where everything is cheap and disposable, nothing is really built to last, but you can buy new stuff and it won’t break the bank.

Today I had to sit and watch Laura take a picture of an 18 inch plush Unicorn. She put it up for $5. Who in the blue hell is buying second hand kids teddies for $5 off Facebook. I tell you who. Serial Killers.

We moved in to a gated community to stop just anyone being able to wander around where we live, stroll up to our front door and look in to our house. I mean Jesus Christ 50% of the people here have guns, so why wouldn’t we want a bit of extra security. We just negate that by constantly adding people we don’t know to our approved visitor list to pick up, again, other… peoples.. shit..

You also have to wonder the caliber of person who is picking up their 5th item from Laura’s little shop of horrors. Right now, apart from the Unicorn, we have a woman’s rain coat and a kids manicure set and some used bath mats. Who the hell is buying this? She sold a second hand trash can once, it was the most successful sale ever, $80!

When, invariably, it doesn’t sell Laura then drops the price to zero and gives the stuff away. Regular customers have figured this out and just wait until it’s free then just pick up a carrier bag full of stuff. One lady has done this about 6 times, she works at Burger King so instead of cash to go towards the security gates we let everyone through, we get left over Burger King desserts. The kids love it, diabetic Dave, not so much.

To be honest it doesn’t bother me too much, except for the non stop, constant Facebook notifications I get whenever anything is put up for sale. I get very few notifications and when I get one I grab my phone pretty quick to see what it is. The sense of disappointment of it being another (sometimes 3rd hand!) item being put up for sale is matched only by the disappointment I used to get when a text came in and it was Pizza Hut telling me about a 2 for 1 deal on a Tuesday.

It could be worse though, at least she is trying to get rid of the stuff, her Dad has a garage full of crap that one day I am going to have to empty out.