115 N Holmes Street: Mike

Someone decided to plant the idea in kids heads that life works out like this: graduate High School, go to college, land top notch career, get married, buy huge house, and make lots of babies. In reality not too many people follow this exact path and for those of us that don't we're meant to feel inferior because of it.

My path: graduate high school. Next step unknown. My parents didn't make a lot of money and I didn't see the point in wasting their money and my time going to college. Since early childhood I knew I liked working with my hands. Often I took things apart in order to better understand how they worked and how to put it back together again. No household appliance was safe. And just because I wasn't that scholar athlete doesn't mean I was a delinquent either. It's interesting how a kid needs to fall into one of those two categories. As far as school went I did alright, but when I was done with it I was done.

Work is around if you know where to look and who to ask. Plumbing, electrical, construction...you name it I did it. If I didn't know how I learned real quick. There are quite a few not so pretty scars on my body from some of the more "fun" lessons I learned. But I like to think of myself as built Ford tough. On the job we often compared our battle wounds with one another. Sometimes the guy with the nest scar scored a few free beers after work.

Girls. What hot blooded male didn't prefer the real thing to his own hand? I just wasn't a relationship/romantic kind of guy. On the other other hand I wasn't some scum bag player either. After all I did have a mother, a pretty good one at that, who taught me to respect women. I never lied or manipulated my way into sex. It's important to be clear before anything even gets started what's going to happen; more importantly what isn't going to happen. I will not be your boyfriend, you best friend, the guy you can melt his frozen heart to get to fall in love with you.

Maybe someday it'll happen, but all the people I know that got married and got saddled down with kids long for the life they had before. I'm not ready to have to answer to someone, actually I probably never will want that. If I did do the whole relationship thing it would be so casual I don't even think it could be classified as a relationship. I mind my business, she minds hers, and we hang out when we hang out. End of story.

My freedom is something I value above all else. That's another reason I sub-contract as oppose to signing on with an actual crew. There's something to be said for choosing what jobs you want to work and when you want to work them. Additionally I could charge more for my services since they weren't providing me with benefits. I had taken out a bare minimum health insurance plan just in case I fall off a roof and break multiple bones. Anything aside from that scenario I would consider minor. The time I shot the nail gun through my hand, minor.

To be honest I wasn't planning on renting a room from this lady. I was only there as a favor to Randy who had hooked me up with my last job. But the house was nice; nice meaning lots of projects to do. It hit me though that she was far from a cash cow especially if she was looking to take on roommates. Randy had passed on renting from her because of transportation issues.

My mind went back to my current living situation where I was sharing a three bedroom apartment with four other guys. The place constantly smelt like gym socks. And I had to share my room. It wasn't that I couldn't afford better, but I had been putting money aside for the day I found something of my own. Ideally an old house I could fix up. True this house wasn't my own, but I really liked the idea of having constant projects to work on. And this wasn't just some random job, this was something I could invest myself in because I would be living here.

Daphne, that's her name, showed me the two remaining bedrooms. She explained that the other roommate Maggie, an older Hispanic woman, had claimed the other big room. Maggie would be helping with housework and making dinner for us during the week. I have no idea if Maggie can cook but it has to be better than my Hungry Man frozen dinners. The first room she showed me was small and across the hall from Maggie's. It was odd shaped like a piece straight out of that game Tetris. The other room was equal in size but was also the only access point to the attic. I valued my privacy, so I elected the "Tetris Room".

Living with two woman that weren't related to me would be a first. I do have to say the place smelled and looked far superior to what I had grown used to. My own room even though it was small was my space. I was a guy that didn't need much: a bed and a TV pretty much took care of everything. Sometimes at night I would climb out my window onto the roof and just look up at the stars. It was nice to take some quiet time to myself to think about nothing specific.

The next few months went by pretty uneventfully. Except for being forced to sit down to a "nice family dinner" Monday through Friday, I was mostly left to my own devices. There was plenty to keep me busy too.

My first project was replacing the windows and increasing insulation in the walls. I figured this would greatly decrease the heating/cooling bills as well as increase our comfort levels in the house. Additionally each room got a ceiling fan. I felt the difference within the first week. The money I was spending on supplies was similar to what I would have spent on rent and utilities if I were living on my own. It helped having been in the business since I was eighteen so I knew where to go to get quality product for a fair price.

It wasn't part of the deal but Maggie made me some bag lunch every day whether I was going out for work or sticking around the house. Nothing fancy just a sandwich, a fruit, some chips, and a can of soda. As far as breakfast, I had always been a simple cereal guy. Not the whole grain heart healthy kind, but the sugar packed kids cereals with the cheap prizes at the bottom. My mouth salivates just thinking of all the delicious dinners Maggie makes us: seven layer lasagna, five alarm chili with rice, Shepard's pie, beef empanadas, grilled teriyaki steak skewers, and 101 different ways to make chicken. I had no doubt my mid section was getting a little soft from all this fine dining.

The three of us worked well together. We knew who parked their car where, what time we sat down for dinner, who did what household chores (Of course trash removal, yard work, and killing spiders fell in my domain), and the bathroom schedule which was split between Maggie and me since Daphne had her own. Then the new girl showed up and I couldn't shake this feeling that everything was about to get flipped on it's ass.