Shopping For Houses

Hold onto your horses, you female readers and fans. This “house shopping” isn’t what you all have been hoping for. Ol' Dutch hasn’t been caught up in the trap of setting up a domestic domicile with Trixie as all of you have hoped and dreamed of.

This is about helping my son, Bubs, look for a new house in Kansas. He and the family have decided to make their abode on the plains of Kansas, a place where you cannot see hell from but you can sure smell it.

Fearing for my grandchildren’s future and Bubs’ investment, I, of course, had to go along to check out the houses, school districts, neighborhoods, tax assessments, ground water condition and economic development plans.

 Ol' Dutch soon found out why he doesn’t like house searching. He was wrapped up in going to open houses and Realtor visits and looked at enough houses to shelter all the homeless in America.

 One thing I did learn is that once you give Trixie a task, she is relentless in her efforts. She is an amazing blend of searching talent and was able to unlock secrets about houses that God Himself was unsure about.

Now Ol' Dutch and Bubs were looking for a country place where a man can have “stuff.” This is better known as “anything he wants” and is part of the American dream.

 This requires what is known as no covenants so the man can accumulate good stuff over time and stack it up for later use. One of my friends just acquired his third billy club at a garage sale and even though he has no need for even one, he was elated. Such is the life of a happy man.

 I finally located a perfect old farmhouse sitting on four acres, in the right school district and only 3 miles from town.

 Ol' Dutch and Bubs, with visions of grandeur, had already gutted the interior in our minds and added on both ends of the house when Trixie, ever the spoiler, brought up a minor detail to our attention.

It seems that some time ago the owners came to an abrupt demise at the hands of some robbers, who killed the poor people as they slept.

Announcing this to Bubs and Tinkerbell, his wife, put a certain damper on the otherwise joyous occasion and thereby ended the tour and canceled any chance of a sale that day.

Another house Ol' Dutch was drug to -- I mean “looked at” -- had all the doors and windows broken out which, in Realtor terms, is “a good starter home.” It was in a great neighborhood and overlooked a lake and was just what we were looking for.

But Trixie, ever the spoiler, somehow tracked down the previous owner and found out he was a child porn distributor and in the pen for some years to come. No amount of cleaning would ever be enough to get that house livable for my kids. Talk about picky.

Now Ol' Dutch has long been known for his expertise in hitting a moving target but this one kept moving at such a jagged path even he couldn’t get his sights on it.

We went from two bedrooms to three upstairs and back; to finished and then unfinished basements; and then, lake view to field view to an alley view so fast my head was spinning even before the rum and coke I used for “medicinal” purposes.

Offers were made, offers were rejected until they finally found a perfect house thereby saving Ol' Dutch from a life of open houses, being nice, wearing clean clothes and booze. Well, at least I don’t have to go house hunting or be nice.