Rational Numbers

Years ago, the Maryland Lottery people had a catchy little jingle. I've searched hither and yon for an mp3 version online, but to no avail. The lyrics, from memory, were:

Let' s say you're just walking around
With a ticket in your pocket
The next day you could be a millionaire
With your own personal moon rocket

Everybody' s got a dream
And everyday somebody' s dream comes true
The Maryland Lottery
The odds are seven point six million to one it won't be you

Or something to that effect. I remember playing around with the primitive spreadsheet technology we had back in the early 90s (in those days we painted the formulas on the walls of caves), and figuring out how big a number 7.6 million really was. Well it's big. Really big. Bigger, even, than 2.1 million. Which is an awkward transition to today's story.

A few months ago I decided to move. While my little place out by Dulles airport is nice enough, much of my work is in Baltimore. That tedious, horseshoe-shaped commute along 495 was becoming a bit much, especially atop the 16 hour days that are so typical in the film production world. So I started looking for a new house, and eventually settled on an adorable 60-year old all-brick Bungalow in the far reaches of Takoma Park Maryland. The price was right, it was in adequate shape, and had a nice yard and even a fireplace. Home.

October 05 left me with overlapping rents. So I decided to move myself, slowly, getting rid of a lot of junk in the process. October 6th found me with my first load of stuff, several boxes of books. I pull into (my) new driveway, and start unloading. There's a fellow next door, in a small garage, cutting wood on a table saw. He sees me and walks over, a smile on his face.

"You the new neighbor?" he asks?

"Yep, just moving in."

He sticks out a hand. ."William Smithers"

"Bruce Royce."

He gets a puzzled look. "What was your last name?"

"Royce, like the car." I grin, "No relation."

"Ah."

He seems a bit surprised, but I plunge on, making small talk, trying to chat about the neighborhood, what he does for a living ("Carpentry... sometimes."), if he works from home ("Sometimes."), etc. I notice the answers are getting a bit cryptic, so I say nice to meet you and let him go and unload my boxes. Then I head back to the old place. 45 minutes after I land, I get a phone call. The voice is female, vaguely familiar.

"It's me."

"Um, who's 'me?'"

"Kathy."

Kathy. My ex-wife. Whom I've not spoken to in about three years.

"Um. Hi."

"I hear you're moving."

"Yeah... where'd you hear that?"

"From Will. We own the house. Together."

Now, last I'd heard, she was still living out near Annapolis. Alone. Turns out ,they bought the place together a few years ago (checking the records, I see it was actually while she and I were still married. Sigh.). William apparently recognized the name, and called her about the freaky coincidence, then no doubt got the description and she realized that the Gods had played a terrible joke.

Well, needless to say, I shan't be moving there. Called the property management agency, who were singularly unsympathetic, then emailed the owner (who lives in Albania for the time being). Kathy emailed him as well, since, well, she's his neighbor, and will probably not be a happy neighbor if I'm next door... we'll see what he says. At the very least, I'll be breaking my first lease.

My first web site visit after learning all this was census.gov. Found out that there are 2.1M homes in Maryland. The odds of finding a house next to your estranged wife?

You do the math.

(all names in the above story have been changed)