There’s a check traveling across the country in the mail, right now – or maybe it’s already arrived – while we mosey our way down through Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas on the train. We eat oatmeal from a thermos we set up the night before, using our electric kettle and the bathroom outlets and water from the little sink in the observation car. Oh, and oats brought from Whole Foods in Chicago. Which were probably shipped from a processing plant in Pennsylvania. Which probably got the raw oats from Iowa.

The check is made out to our future roommate, whose voice we know only through IM. We staggered back and forth between our two options – did we want to live with 3 guys, or with one girl? The guys are in their late 20s/early 30s: a musician and two self-proclaimed ‘old skateboarder dudes.’ The girl is 23, vegetarian, on top of her shit, has a dog with separation anxiety, and sounds a little uptight. The guys, well, they’re 3 guys. Sharing one shower.

Back and forth, pros and cons, discussion after discussion, first feeling committed to one, mapping out routes to groceries, and then making whole new maps and plans the next day, from the other address.

The girl ran around to different housing options, trying to find something with our price range in mind, something without carpeting for her dog to tear up, with no shared walls for her dog’s barks to pierce when no one is home. She found a house with bamboo floors and crown moldings, a mile from the train, less than a mile from Trader Joe’s. Uphill, said GoogleEarth, all the way to Trader Joe’s, but downhill with the groceries all the way back.

“Hola!” she says in her email, giving us the details of this house she thinks is just so cute, and that is even a little below our upper price limit.

“Holla back!” I say, in my response, having misread her greeting. I catch it a few days later when I go back to reference her email.

Oops. Californians say ‘Hola;’ Chicagoans say “Holla.”

We reread her description of the house, her description of herself, look at our maps, and think “Yeah, okay, yes.”

“Sounds like a plan then,” I email. Let’s send in that rental application, that credit check. We bundle up and leave Molly’s house with the form in hand, squinting against the cold wind on our way to Kinko’s.

But then the skateboarder dude, Luke, who runs a surf and board shop, mentions that they have a yard with a small garden and a porch and that they’re set back behind another house, so there’s no traffic noise. And they compost. And have bike hooks and a workbench in the basement.

They compost!

The check is half our deposit. Luke will get the other half on arrival.

Holla back, y’all.

Note: Posted via the wireless connection at our campgrounds in San Antonio. What is the world coming to.