We bought this house on my recommendation. Jodi was still in Michigan when I put the offer on it, in part because we needed a place to live and I’d been here a month already, living in the the Residence Inn in downtown Minneapolis.

I’d looked at a number of homes, and this was easily my favorite – some of what I wanted, some of what she wanted, three bedrooms, 1-3/4 baths, etc. Jodi saw photos of the place, but never walked around in it until we’d already agreed to buy it. At that point, she walked into the downstairs bedroom, and said, “Huh. There’s no closet.”

Sure enough, there wasn’t. I’d noticed many, many other things, but not that. “Oh, well,” I said. “We can put one in when the kids are older and need it.”

“But without a closet, I don’t think it counts as a bedroom,” she said.

“So? We’ll still use it as one, won’t we?”

In her infinite patience, Jodi neither hit me nor called me a moron. She simply said, “We’re paying for a three-bedroom house, not a two-bedroom house.”

D’oh! To this day, I always warn young men against house-hunting without their brides, and if they must, I warn them to especially note the closets.

Today – five years later – I put shelves and rods up for the boys closet. So tired, but Jode is so happy! Good night, all.