I Went From Looking at a House to Buying an Old Van to Live In

We drove north on the freeway toward the parking lot the man from the ad told us to meet him in. Neil lectured me on the fact that it was an old van; it probably had rust, it probably had all kinds of mechanical problems. But I was busy staring out the window at the cookie-cutter houses carved into the foothills. Brown stucco with brown roofs and brown shutters, smashed up against one another row after row after row.

We turned slowly down side streets where empty warehouses loomed in weekend silence. In the corner spot of the last one on the left, a colossal orange rectangle. The van was so huge in person, it was practically cartoonish. Neil’s pickup truck was dwarfed in its shadow. We walked circles around it as we waited for the seller to appear.

The front end was snub-nosed and square, retro-looking in a way. The tires were about as high as my waist, and the orange paint job had clearly been a DIY project, as glossy drip marks dotted the exterior. Neil had climbed underneath to check for rust when a door to the warehouse swung open. A bearded guy walked out and introduced himself as Joe. He and Neil began talking details about mileage and repair and owner history.

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