There goes the neighborhood

(Tonight's workout CD: Suede Chain: Ripplemark)

I live in an affordable, unusual apartment above a bakery in a quaint neighborhood business district. I haven't checked my lease lately, but I wonder how long my neighbor gets away with running a real estate business out of his apartment.

I know, I know. I've done a few freelance gigs in the privacy of my own home.

It's not like he's giving music lessons at all hours of the day. But there are a few unnerving aspects to the enterprise:

• The dry-erase board on his apartment door. (The man is at least forty, and he needs a dry-erase board so clients can leave him messages?)

• The sticky gold-on-black block letters in which he's spelled the name of his business on his apartment door.

• The light-up sign bearing the name of his business and owl logo in his apartment window.

• The airbrushed fabric sign bearing the name of his business and owl logo that hangs out the apartment window.

• He's trying to sell real estate out of a cheap Chicago-area apartment with appliances from the fifties.

P.S.

Read Rob's North Carolina story and Dave's spoof.

They're both hilarious, even if you don't know either of them.