Coincidence (Premium)

I have an incredible story of coincidence that I just have to share. The best part? It has nothing to do with Google invading my privacy, for a change. In fact, Google helped make this story happen.

Yesterday, a reader sent me an email with the following attached image. It's from a 1960's newspaper advertisement.

He saw the image in a YouTube video, noted that it old and was from Emmaus, and remembering that that's where I now live, he sent it to me because he thought I'd find it interesting. Which, of course, I did. Plus I love this kind of kitschy stuff.

Anyway, last night my wife and I were sitting outside. She was talking about one of those "it only happens locally"-type things, something that was specific to Emmaus, and it reminded me of the email. So I grabbed the phone, found the image, and showed it to her.

Scanning the picture, my wife said, "that has to be near the house we just looked at."

I hadn't recognized the address in the ad at all. And wouldn't, as we've only been here a year. But she gets out more and is far better about local street names and other locations than I am.

Obviously, her comment requires a bit of explanation.

One of the many reasons we moved to Emmaus was to downsize. But if you know anything about the house we moved to, you know that it is considerably bigger than the one we moved from. So I often refer to the move as a "financial downsizing" because it's far less expensive to live here than it was at our previous home outside of Boston. This house, which is nearly twice as big as our last house, only cost about half as much to buy as our previous house had sold for.

Despite this, there are costs associated with size. And I've often pointed out to my wife that we'd be better off in a smaller home here, where we could save even more. And being the big idea guy that I am, a few weeks ago I tossed out a random (and not completely thought-out) idea to my wife (and our real estate-crazy daughter). Maybe we could consider buying a smaller house nearby that's in need of repair, fix it up, rent it out temporarily, and then move into it later. Maybe even a duplex type thing where we live in one unit and rent the other.

I didn't intend this, but they started immediately researching local houses for sale, and were specifically looking for cheap wrecks that needed a lot of work. And they found one that they thought was so interesting that they dragged me into the car to go look at it in person. This was two weeks ago.

The house was on offer for about $39,000 and it was a disaster. It was also only half the house, and it is in a floodplain. And ... I just don't think real estate is our thing. The time, the effort, the money. I don't know. So we sort of collectively decided that it made no sense and they never brought up another house idea, and I let it pass.

That house is the house at the address in the ad the reader sent me. It isn't "near" it. It is the house.

To be clear, the lite...

Gain unlimited access to Premium articles.

With technology shaping our everyday lives, how could we not dig deeper?

Thurrott Premium delivers an honest and thorough perspective about the technologies we use and rely on everyday. Discover deeper content as a Premium member.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC