Lessons learned.

I own a house now.

So here are some statements about the joys of homeownership.

1) I own an entire KITCHEN. This is the single most awesome possession I own.

2) I come home to a house that is unquestionably empty. This is amazing and comforting and wonderful.

3) I'm still not unpacked. This is disheartening.

4) One of the 6 hearths in my house doesn't seal correctly, which, if I were a more paranoid person, might lead me to lie awake in bed at night and wait for a brave squirrel to break into my house and jump on my face while I sleep. No, I don't carefully lock myself into my bedroom each night before bed, why do you ask?

5) All expenses are mine to bear alone. I have mixed feelings about this.

6) I have an entire room dedicated to the display, storage, and consumption of liquor. This is wicked awesome.

7) My fridge is bigger than I should ever need, and if I ever fill it while living alone I'm not living right.

8) I need a blender.

9) OMGoodness Toaster Oven! Yay!

10) I made my own screen to put in my bedroom window yesterday. This made me feel handy.

11) My dryer is possessed by a demon.

I do not say this lightly.

For one, whenever I run the first cycle of a laundry day, a noise emanates from it. This noise is difficult to emulate textually but I'll try. "EeeeeEEEEeeeee. . . eeeEEEEeeeEEEEE. . . .eeeEEEEEeeeee. . . " It sounds like a bad low volume recording of half a dozen souls being fed slowly into some sort of ethereal shredder.

Secondly. . . my dryer has a turny-button* labeled "signal". If this button is turned to "signal" it should make a noise when the dryer cycle finishes. This button is mislabeled. Foghorn would be closer to an appropriate except that Foghorns aren't as loud as this fucker. Maybe

ALARM

would work.

Our neighbors know when my laundry is done. And I live alone, so when I say our neighbors, I mean us as a country. MEXICO AND CANADA know when my shirts are dry. If you were outside yesterday and heard something that sounded like a cross between the "wrong!" buzzer from an old Nickelodeon game show and a tornado siren, that was just my dryer.

Seriously, there is ONE ROOM in my entire house from which the noise is only startling as opposed to shit-yourself-then-hide-in-a-closet terrifying, and that's my Sunroom on the complete other end of the house.

12) Lowe's and Home Depot are going to wind up with the deed to my firstborn if I'm not careful.

13) I like being a homeowner.

That is all.

*and as we know. All Turny-buttons lie. Thanks Eddie.