(1) David wanted to buy a house so he could put his carpentry skills to profitable use and buy, fix up and sell it - an impossible dream in Southern California on a carpenter's and sometime temp/baker/artist's salaries....
(2) I had just seen Doc Hollywood, in which Michael J. Fox plays a Hollywood doctor who moves to and finds true love and a darling home in a quaint Midwestern town that looked sooooo cute! (Hey, I was, like, 23 and like many 23 year olds, not exactly dealing with a full 6-pack when it came to smart Life decisions, if you know what I mean)....
Oh, yes, and...
(3) We were evicted.
Somehow our landlady, a wealthy Manhattan widow with a Madonna-style British accent I'll call Lady Aubrey, found out that we had a dog. So, for a one and one-half pound puppy we named Woody (after the long surfboards and Woody Harrelson's character on "Cheers" - not what you're thinking, oh nasty one) we were homeless.
We decided to head to Michigan, David's home state, since his brother was a realtor there with some dirt cheap properties we could buy. Yay.
Two days before we were ready to leave, Lady Aubrey showed up on our deck step with her morbidly obese Shitzu, Mish Mash.
"I've come to rent the flat out myself," she said cheerily. It was hard not to slap her, standing there all happy and phony with her dog. "The agency simply cannot be trusted," she chirped, referring to the rental agent we signed our lease with.
I stood in the doorway, holding Woody, barely a palm full of pooch, and stared at the blubber-fur she apparently didn't call "a dog." It sneezed at me.
"But...you have... a dog," was all I could say.
"Oh, no, this is Mish Mash! And who's that little thing?"
Thing?
"Woody."
"WOODY!!" she shrieked. "My ex-husband's name was Woody!"
"Good thing we're leaving," I muttered.
"Mish Mash and I will move into your flat straight away," she said. Cut the phony accent, even Woody knows you're probably from New Jersey, I am thinking.
"After we leave, you mean," I said.
"Naturally! Mish Mash doesn't care for other dogs."
I looked down at Mish-Mashed-In-Face just as he lifted his leg and peed, right there on the porch. Urine drizzled down with split-splotch sounds onto the first floor residents' patio.
"Good boy, Mish Mash!" She applauded.
I still can't believe this.
"But you're evicting us for having a dog," I said.
"Well, I don't allow them," she said simply.
I look down at Mish Mash, noisily cleaning his privates with a freakishly long tongue.
"Well, then," was all I could say.
"Tally ho!" she waved and hefted up Blubber Boy.
We were gone by nightfall.
********
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