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Doug and Kelly moved in across the street a few months ago. We are in the country, so they were about a half mile away, but we went to greet them anyway. They were a nice attractive couple, and invited us in with our plate of cookies and insisted we stay for a cook-out. We had a few beers and wine and got along great.
We socialized occasionally, and played bridge with them a couple times when they brought it up. Mercy and I had played a few times before we were married but were really just above beginners, but Doug and Kelly were even worse. After a couple of routs, we didn't bring it up again, but they still wanted to play every so often. They seemed to be getting a little better, and once almost took a rubber off of us.
We had them over about a month later in September. They didn't have any children, while we had one teenager at home from college, Stacy. Doug and Kelly mentioned they both traveled on business quite a bit, and asked Stacy if she was interested in taking care of the house for them while they were away. Stacy jumped at the opportunity, even before she found out about the generous pay.
I went over with Stacy the first time. He had to show Stacy how to work the security system they had installed. Doug worked for an electronics outfit where he could get a lot of equipment way below retail. This was all new to Stacy, as we rarely even lock our doors, but Doug said Kelly had seen a lot of horror movies where bad things happened to people in isolated houses. Mercy and I laughed about it when we came home, as one of the things we liked about living in the country was not having had any trouble in the 10 years we had been here.
Doug and Kelly went to a convention together, and Stacy took care of things with no problem on Friday and Saturday. Saturday night she was invited to go to an amusement park with her friends on Sunday, and asked me if I could take care of the house. She was returning to college the following weekend. I agreed, with the condition she would mow the lawn for an hour in exchange.
The next day I picked up the little reminder card Stacy had made for me and the key and was going out the door when Mercy asked if she could come with me. We walked the half-mile to their house, grabbing their newspaper on the way.
I punched in the security code on the card and opened the door with the key when the green light went on. We fed the cat and then went up to the bedroom to water the plant there. We had never been upstairs in their house, let alone in their bedroom, and it was amazing.
We live in an old farmhouse with character and we love it. Doug and Kelly live in a mini-mansion, which probably explained some of the security. The bedroom was as big as our living room with a king-size bed and its own entertainment center that could be concealed in a tasteful looking wardrobe. It was open though, with the large screen TV showing. We had seen their Super TV before in the movie room, but even this one was bigger than any of ours. It was then Mercy reminded me the Redskins-Cowboys game was on.
"We should watch it here -- it's better than any of our TVs."
"I don't think that would be right." I said.
"Kelly told me to feel free to use their house while they were gone if we needed to get away for a little bit"