Double Double Dip

June 1, 2011. 10:42 PM. 


Just completed another mile and quarter tonight. Plus the mile and a quarter I swam at lunchtime. Bringing me to 7 completed miles in the span of three days. Not bad for a guy pushing 43 years old. For more details on my Swim to Africa, please see the blog entry of May 26th. Sadly, we've only added one new sponsor today. And frankly I find that disheartening. But not half as disheartening as this...


There was bad news on the economy today and many economists now feel the housing market is slipping into a classic double dip. If this continues my kids will be going to a vocational college and I'll be spending my sunset years in a dirty dorm room fighting over the remote control with three old Jews named Morty, Irv and Abe.

As if that weren't enough, I was reading the Los Angeles Times the other day and discovered that my house is worth considerably less than I had thought. Oh sure we've added the tankless water heater, installed Pella Windows and put in premium hardwood flooring guaranteed to withstand a nuclear attack, but unless I'm able to persuade the Postmaster General to make some fundamental changes it appears we are S.O.L.

You see my house is "ethnically undesirable." Here's why:

According to Chinese superstition, the number 4 sounds like the Mandarin word for Death. Subsequently, Chinese people and indeed most Asians from the subcontinent, tend to avoid purchasing houses with the number 4 in the address.

Lucky me, my address has two of them.

This means when my wife and I are ready to sell the house and feather our retirement nest with the proceeds, a significant constituency will be unwilling to cross our front doorstep. Or they will be inclined to lower the asking price by a good 25%. 

The article in the Times did not expound on the numbers '1' and '6', but if my suspicions are correct I think they are Mandarin for "you can't retire until you're 90 years old" and "don't even think about Scratch-Off Tickets."