Driving Discoveries

       I dreamed that N and I were driving through a city that had seen better days. We were looking for a gas station, as blippies were near the bottom of the display. The “need gas now” light hadn't come one yet, but was certainly threatening. As we rolled through town we finally spotted some old gas tanks. The price was just a bit lower than we were used to seeing, but high enough for us to figure the place wasn't out of business or something.
       As we rolled into the station I heard a ding and a woman ran out to offer to pump the gas. Full service at a cheap price. We were so stunned I accepted her offer to check the tires and wash the windows for $3 more. N and I went across the street to an abandoned looking building that had once been a shop. We explored a bit. The empty display cases had some retirement village brochures tossed about on them, but nothing else. I could see several rectangular dark marks in the felt of the display case where the felt had not faded. Whatever had been in the case had been there a long time.
       I discovered an awning covered pool. N checked it with a nearby pool kit and declared that it was well balanced. I could see the algae, though, and the smell was obvious though not offensive. Playing around the water had made me need a restroom. The only one we found was not finished, and the restroom was open to the public street, so I decided I could hold it until we got back to the gas station.
       I walked out into the fenced back yard. There was a 4 high rack of painted hubcaps, mostly red, white and blue themes, but a couple had mountainscapes painted on them, one had an eagle and there were four or five with ducks. I heard quacking, so turned to the sound and discovered, behind a split rail fence holding up a lot of old rusted car bumpers, a small pond. Several families of ducks paddled about on the surface. I could see large fish below the water, and there was a family of squirrels darting around in the pepper trees on the other side of the pond. There were also several walnut trees and a couple of orange trees as well.
       “Oh, do you think this place might be for sale?”
       “We'll have to ask. I didn't see a sign, and I didn't see a foreclosure notice. Maybe the gas girl knows.”
       We headed back through the shop and there was an elderly gentleman there. We startled one another.
       “Sorry about that. We were wondering if this property was for sale?”
       “No buyers out here. No kin to even give the place to. Even the Y didn't want it. Was going to abandon it and give up on retirement.”
       It turned out the old man was the owner, and was going to just give up and try to find a place in the city to live on his SS check. After some questioning, we discovered that he really wanted to buy into the retirement condos in the brochures we'd spotted earlier. I asked how much that was. It was far less than we had expected to find a new home for.
       “How about if you sell us this home, with rights to survivorship, and we pay the mortgage on your retirement condo?”
       “For this old junkyard? I'd feel like I was ripping you off!”
       “Make us the beneficiary on the condo, then it's more than even.”
       Eventually we worked out a deal where we would by this place outright for the price of the down payment on his condo, thus fixing a new and lower tax rate. We would then transfer the bulk of the cost of the condo into a trust that would automatically pay the condo off until it was paid in full or he passed on, which ever came first.
       In the middle of negotiations the gas girl came over to see if we were OK. GG was delighted that she was going to have new neighbors, even if we weren't going to re-open the art store/tobacco shop. (Although I was thinking that we could have some sort of shop in the front shop area, I figured I could still write while sitting at the counter of a nearly empty shop.)

Ad Astra per technica,
FF