Post-owned domicile

We are now enjoying the privileges of living in what I believe could be called our "post-owned" home. Since it's past the time that we owned it and Quest now owns it, it must be post-owned, right? When we sold it last week, the home was pre-owned because we had owned it and so had a bunch of others along the way: in my memory Ed Senft, the Walt Heath family, the Bidwells, the Altons, and then the Crapes.

We certainly wouldn't want to have advertised it as a "used home," would we? That might not be too appealing to the masses looking for the new and true North Idaho ambience.

Anyway, we bought this pre-owned home the last day of 1976, and, believe me, it was in a pre-owned state when we moved in a couple of weeks later. The Crape kids---all boys of the rock-throwing ilk---had enjoyed a great time practicing their accuracy skills on all the barn windows and hitting their bullseyes. So, there was a lot of glass lying on the ground along the sides of the barn. Definitely pre-owned, if you ask me.

There were also a lot of mysterious items frozen to the ground all around the house and outbuildings. It wasn't until the next spring thaw that we were able to remove most of that stuff. Besides the exterior clutter, a lot of people had been living in the house at the time of our purchase besides the Crapes, so I'd say its state was definitely "used---er pre-owned."

Anyway, we've used the place for thirty years, maintaining it as best we could with the money and time we had while raising our kids and keeping our noses to our working grindstones. The biggest repair job came when the heart of our pre-owned home got replaced after the fire in 1984.

But this 1985 model has dealt with its share of wear and tear as it's moved on through the years. We learned that very graphically a couple of weeks ago when the inspection police came in and checked under the hood, over the hood and throughout the full interior. As a result, we're becoming backyard mechanics for some of those 17 dings on the inspection report, i.e., the decks, some bathroom maintenance, door knobs, etc.

Didya know ya can't plant flowers up next to your house anymore unless ya line the whole area with plastic? Dirt touching wood is a mortal sin. So, another part of my mechanic duties to get this pre-owned house in shape by the time we leave is to remove those flowers and all that dirt. I'll wait until we go move into our new pre-owned home before doing that.

Now that we're living in our post-owned home, I'm wondering how much it's really worth by bluebook standards. Certainly when we get all that maintenance done, its sticker price will go up.

I actually heard that "pre-owned" term for the first time last weekend when my husband used it in reference to aged cars that sit on a lot hoping to be purchased. Then yesterday, my brother used it in his cartoon featuring those "pre-owned" camels.

With all this new etymology in mind, I guess I've made one gross error in this posting by referring to Bill and me as "mechanics" as we go about repairing the kinks in our house during this post-ownership era.

I guess if we're going to keep current with our ever-changing lingo, we should consider ourselves "pre-owned domicile surgeons."