Chapter Three

Harbor

It had been a long day at work. We were stress testing a new system, and it didn’t actually go that well, but by the time I left, we were at a good stopping point. We still had a month to get it up and fully functional, and staying there longer wouldn’t do any of us any good.

There was just enough time to grab a sub at my favorite sandwich shop before they closed, which was another factor in calling it quits. Not that I’d confess that part to my boss. My plan was to go home, eat my sandwich while watching something silly on TV, more as background noise than entertainment, and then go to bed.

I should’ve known better than to make plans. Instead, when I arrived at the door, there was a notice taped to it. My landlord gave out “important” information this way. He could email them like a normal person, but no, he liked to tape them to the door.

The first time was a reminder that we needed to move our cars when it snowed. Mind you, he put that one up in August for reasons I still didn’t understand. The second time was to let us know they were switching lawn services, another thing that didn’t really impact my life. So, when I saw this one, I figured it was more of the same.

Only as I unfolded it, I saw it was anything but.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” I pushed the door open and closed it behind me a little too loudly. My landlord was raising my rent—not by $100 a month for my next lease cycle like he had in past years. No, he was raising it by 50 percent. If I crunched the numbers, my guess was I could afford it, but why? Why would I stay in a studio apartment and pay that much more when I could find something else?

Only, as I searched the local ads, I really couldn’t find anything else to even look at. All of the apartments had gone up exponentially. I had money saved in the hope of someday putting a down payment on a house. I could swing it to go up a tier in housing, as it were, but I hated the thought of that. I hated the thought of burning my cash just to keep my status quo, or possibly get a separate bedroom instead of studio fun.

Giving up, I shut my computer down, not wanting to think anything more about it. I had until the end of the month to decide, and then one more month after that before the change took place. I was just gonna punt this down the road and deal with it later.

I flicked on the television, not really paying attention to what was on, and finally got to my dinner. It was a steak-and-cheese sub. When I bought it, it was probably delicious, but now it was tepid, and the bread was gummy. Totally my fault—I was the one who had the bright idea to look for houses first.

When I finally paid attention to what was on the screen, what was it? Housing shows. It seemed to be in the cards tonight.

Could I have turned it off? Found something else to watch? Absolutely. But I didn’t. I watched it like a train wreck.

The first show was about people moving internationally, taking their good salaries and finding extremely high-end living elsewhere. That felt kind of icky to me, and I didn’t really understand the appeal. But the second show was fun—it was about someone who went around the country to find unusual homes. There was a house shaped like a mushroom, one built into the side of a hill that looked more like a hobbit house than a modern one, and even a person who lived in a cave they had converted into a home.

The next show really caught my attention. It was all about people living in their vehicles—by choice. It featured people who were taking vans that cost as much as houses in some parts of the country and converting them into homes to travel around in. That wasn’t for me. It seemed to me that a better idea than spending nearly $100,000 for a home on wheels would be to either get a camper, which was already done, or buy a home with land.

But it got me thinking… What about an old minivan? Could that be converted? Those were significantly cheaper, and I wouldn’t need much by way of amenities. Not really. Or a ton of space. It wasn’t like I had a huge place now.

Being a unicorn, there was a certain appeal to that style of life. If I were parked out in the woods, I could shift and enjoy the space. My beast wouldn’t feel trapped, surrounded by concrete. And, of course, there was my career. I was lucky in that my job could, in theory, be fully remote. The more I thought about it, the more I saw this as not only a possibility but also an adventure. It had been a long time since I’d been on one of those.

Instead of going to sleep like I had planned, I went down a rabbit hole—a rabbit hole that left me with a list of car dealers to visit the next morning. Ones with some really good deals on some minivans whose interiors had seen better days. Kids with drink boxes and snacks might have ruined the seating, but if I was gonna take it out anyway... Maybe, just maybe, that would be a better way to go than signing my next lease.