Another Normal American

Last Friday in a real estate office my wife and I signed a zillion pieces of paper that put us in debt to a mortgage company. Then they gave us the keys. We drove to our new home with our two little girls, opened a bottle of fizzy apple cider, made a toast, plugged in a CD player and danced through all of the empty rooms to the obvious song by Madness. At the end of the evening I told the wife I felt possessed by a primitive urge to mark my line around the property.

Now for the past several days I find myself in home improvement centers wandering the aisles, collecting equipment for home maintenance; brooms, rakes, paint, caulk, and various types of sealant that cause exotic forms of cancer in lab animals. I study the boilerplate warnings with great interest while the other dazed homeowners wander past me. Meanwhile David Byrne is yelling in my head: You may find yourself ...

This is another big milestone. My 20s and 30s have seen many reversals of fortune. And the default progression of events (college, wedding, house, kids, followed by some combination of ennui or divorce) - this chronology has been scrambled out of order. But my new winning streak started when Rachel foolishly consented to marry. Now our kids are playing upstairs, and I look out the window to the park next door and watch another young family try and launch a kite.

Cue the golden retriever carrying slippers.