d'Elaphant's House
Created | Updated Nov 11, 2002
This is my house1 in lovely New Brunswick, NJ, I moved in on August 31, 2000, four months after I bought it. I allowed the guys living there at the time to stay until their leases ran out. I used to live in an apartment that is just a few blocks away. Ironically that is where my former tenants now live.
Inside
The ragged old furniture has been replaced with a new, comfortable navy blue couch.2 There is a cozy old gas fireplace, a dining room with hardwood floors, a good-size kitchen and den, and of course the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. Some work needs to be done. The glass in the french doors is mostly missing, but the ugly gray striped wallpaper has been stripped and the walls repainted "cornbread." 3
The carpets need cleaning (again), but are otherwise decent. I have no decorating sense, and while I have finished the living room, in other rooms the broken mini-blinds are still hanging until I can convince someone to tell me what kind of curtains I like (and they can convince me that I do like them. I can be difficult).
My brother is living with me, and his daughter on the weekends. I've been living alone for far too long, but I'm making the adjustment easily enough. And of course, there is Zeppo.
Coincidences
As I bought the house, some slightly odd things happened. First off, the street address number for my apartment was 442. According to the real estate papers, the house is located on "block 442, lot 35." I happen to be 35 years old.
And, when I first went to look at the house, the door was opened by George, another student who used to live there, and who works for me. It was a surprise to find him living in the house I was considering purchasing.
That's not much. Just coincidences with my my apartment address4, my age, and an acquaintance. But that is three coincidences, and three coincidences amounts to a certainty. So I knew that the house would be mine from the first day I saw it. And it was. Even though I was outbid $7000. Even though it was the first house I looked at. Even though I spent all of 5 minutes searching for a home. It all just fell in my lap.
Then to top it all off after moving in I found a charred and burnt penny stuck in the gas burner of the fireplace. The date on the penny is 1964, the year I was born. See? It all must mean something.
