Gather 'round, childrens! It's storytime.
Just over a year ago, back when we were living in soupy-hot Miami and ready to beat a very hasty retreat for the drippy grey yonder of Seattle, I was scouring Craigslist for weeks on end to find a cozy new home in which to rest our weary, overheated heads. After much intensive searching, I eventually found two places which not only made our shortlist for budget, space, and cuteness, but were in our lovely old (liberal academic) neighbourhood of Phinney Ridge. The prospect of raising our kids near wonderful old friends and a fantastic zoo was almost too much to hope for in our increasingly desirable old stomping grounds.
Nevertheless, we heard back from some lovely homeowners who were mutually interested in establishing a relationship with us, so requests to close friends were dispatched for referential purposes. As is the custom. We elected one of my oldest friends in Seattle ~ who held a very prominent cultural position in the city at the time ~ to be at the top of our list. As far as references go, he was Golden: not only did he have an impressive-sounding job title, but he'd also been at different points of our friendship a colleague, boss, and client. I'd taught his daughter piano in every single place we'd lived in Seattle, so he was the perfect reference.
Or so we thought...
We flew back on November 23rd, leaving a sweaty and sticky 90-degree Coconut Grove for a shockingly shivery, snowy Seattle. While waiting for our stuff to arrive in the moving truck ~ as well as final word from the owners of the house we fell in love with on sight ~ we spent our first few weeks back in an über-cushy company-provided suite on Madison and 8th... just across the street from the soup kitchen where I used to be a member of the Tuesday crew. (The wonderful Family Kitchen uses the cooking facilities of the stunning cathedral where Conan O'Brien famously married his Seattle sweetheart, and we were greeted every day at noon and six by sweet peals from its bells.) We'd missed Seattle so much, so it felt like heaven to be back in very dear, familiar territory.
Then, not only did our favourite super-chill, snowboarding homeowners call to let us know they'd fallen in love with us, too, but the moving company also notified our stuff was on its way! Oh, the crazy excitement of re-establishing a home in our beloved Seattle...
We moved in on December 6th, 2007.
A week later, after we'd settled in and were making a gorgeous Saturday brunch in our beautiful new kitchen, Boy exclaimed from the laptop, "Uh... Gorgeous, you'd better come check this out. I haven't read past the first sentence yet, but come here so we can read this together." After rinsing my hands clean, I rushed over, mouth dry from the ominous, slightly bemused tone in his voice.
With the protagonist's name changed to "Bud Weiser," here's what we read. This is an article from a Seattle weekly about my oldest local friend... and top reference for the home in which we're now living:
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12. In lighter news (no one dies): Today brings the upsetting saga of Bud Weiser, the executive director of *Some Place Where Kids Hang Out A Lot,* who was charged yesterday with rape and inappropriate contact with a minor. Details come from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which identifies Weiser's alleged victims as a 16-year-old girl whom he allegedly "touched inappropriately" and the girl's 18-year-old, mildly autistic sister, whom Weiser allegedly groped then forced into sex.
(Making matters worse: These aren't the first allegations against Weiser, who was charged with third-degree rape but pleaded guilty to fourth-degree assault in the early 1990s. A spokesperson for *His Former Place of Employ*, where Weiser has served as director since January 2003, told the P-I that a background check on Weiser revealed "nothing of this nature.") "No children from his workplace are involved in this case," said co-chairwoman of the board of directors. "It's a personal matter for Mr. Weiser." It's also a legal one: If convicted of third-degree rape and communicating with a minor for immoral purposes, Weiser faces up to a year in jail. Stay tuned.
*Oh, goody.* Turns out the police were already investigating him when I'd sent him my missive to be a reference (oh, how they must've been killing themselves laughing over that one!), were phone-tapping his line, and recorded the most conclusively incriminating conversation with one of his alleged victims on our move-in date. Unfortunately, Boy and I automatically turned to each other at the end of the article and said simultaenously, "Oh, Bud." This was, unfortunately, not an uncommon refrain between the two of us. Due to the public nature of this posting, and in respect to the people involved, that's as much as I'll say here.
However...
A few months down the road, after we'd moved in and were fully aware of the Bud story, our amazingly sweet homeowners came by with their beautiful little kids for a visit. I asked ~ as neutrally as possible ~ if they'd ever called up our references. After all, we moved in the day Bud got hauled away, so there was the possibility they not only chatted with him beforehand, but had become familiar enough with his name through personal contact to connect him to the news stories that soon surged hysterically with his face plastered everywhere.
"Naw..." they laughed. "Just your landlord in Miami. We pretty much decided you guys were our new tenants the second we read your first letter and saw photos of the house you restored on your own... so we just called the one reference. Isn't that bad?"
Uh, no. That's actually fine. Really.
All I can say is, whew. If it weren't so purely awful, it'd actually be really funny.
(Photo credit from Elana777's flickr site. This is where I used to worked for Bud.)
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