3037 Visiting the house

Monday, July 26, 2010

"No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why."
-- Mignon McLaughlin --

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This is an oldie, as you can tell by the cost of the room.

Three men go into a motel. The desk clerk said the room was $30, so each man paid $10 and went to the room. A while later, the desk clerk realized the room was only $25, so he sent the bellboy to the three guys' room with $5. On the way, the bellboy couldn't figure out how to split $5 evenly between three men, so he gave each man $1 and kept the other $2 for himself.

This meant that the 3 men each paid $9 for the room, which is a total of $27. Add to that the $2 the bellboy kept and the total is $29. Where is the other dollar?

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I went to a street fair in Rosendale on Saturday. The Hairless Hunk had told me it would be hot, heat index something like 103. Uh, yeah. It was very hot. Street fairs tend to be held on streets, not in cool glades.

The parking lot was a good half mile away. The online info had said there would be shuttles, but there wasn't. I had to go piddle when I pulled into the lot, but by the time I'd walked halfway to Main Street and the first porta-potties I no longer had to go. I was there about 4 hours, and drank at least two quarts of water and iced tea, and never did have to go. I guess I reabsorbed it.

There was a lot of good music, and a lot of vendors. I walked the length of the street twice waiting for the sun to get lower before the walk back to the car.

I'm glad I went, but I doubt I'll go again.

Now that I'm moving away, I feel like I have to finally sample all the things that I'd been aware of for years but kept putting off.

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Yesterday I went to NJ to visit Daughter and Hercules. Daughter had been doing massages at a triathlon, and ran a bit late, so while I waited for her I was overcome by temptation and visited my new house across the street.

First I just walked around the house and looked in windows. The trim is all done, and the stove, sinks, dishwasher, and so on are in. The curb has been cut, the porch has been surfaced and steps have been poured. No driveway or lawn yet, or railings on the porch.

Then I tried the door.

According to the contract, I am not allowed on the property until the inspection visit just before closing. I was not supposed to be on the porch, let alone trying the door.

The door was unlocked.

I went in.

It looks good. It's supposed to be about 550 sq ft larger than this house, but it really doesn't feel like it. There's one more bedroom than here, and the bedrooms are larger, but the living room, kitchen, laundry room and dining room downstairs seem much smaller, and I'm going from a 2.5 car garage to a one car garage, and from a full walkout basement to no basement.

There are phone and cable jacks in all four bedrooms, but downstairs the only phone jack is in the kitchen, and the only cable jack is in the dining room. The builder referred to what I intend to use as the dining room as "the family room", so I guess that explains that, but why no cable jack in the living room? Actually, it probably won't bother me - mostly I'm on the computer when I'm watching TV anyway, and I can see the dining room from where I'll probably set up the computer - but movie watching with company? Living room would be nice.

Same 2.5 bathrooms as here, but the bathrooms in the new house are TINY! The sink cabinets in the bathrooms here have two wide doors, three drawers, and a lot of counter space. In the new house there's two narrow doors, no drawers, and next to no counter space. I've never seen bathtubs so small. In the kitchen I am going from 20 cabinet doors and 8 large drawers to perhaps 9 cabinet doors (if that, I didn't actually count), two tiny drawers and one large drawer.

I'm going to have to do some drastic downsizing.

(There are cabinets in my current kitchen that I haven't opened in years. I suppose that whatever's in them doesn't need to move with me. There's a saying in DP that a program will expand to fill the space available. Same thing happens in kitchen and bathroom cabinets.)

I told Daughter that I was surprised that the door was unlocked, aren't they afraid of vandalism? She said it's a fairly safe neighborhood. Then in the next breath she said she'd heard that someone had stolen all the copper from the house back before they got the sheetrock up.

That might go a long way toward explaining the delay, and why they were having such a problem with the electricity.

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My current BMI is 26.1. To get to 24, I need to lose 10 more pounds.

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Answer to the puzzle above:

There's an explanation at http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/trivia/dollar.asp, but the explanation there is also confusing to me, anyway.

To explain it to myself, I had to get rid of the other two guys. I got the room all by myself for $30. Mistake was found. Bellhop appears at my door with 5 one-dollar bills. I pull off two and give them to him. I spent $25 for the room, $2 for a tip, and have $3 in hand. So I spent $27. That adds up.

If the other two guys show up, I ask for $9 from each to cover their share of the room AND their share of the tip. What has been spent is $27, $25 for the room and $2 tip, which is $9 x 3. The other three dollars are sitting on the table.

That's the only way I can understand it.
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