Steven Harper Piziks

After I moved away from the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area, I forgot about ... Game Days.

If you aren't a football fan (and I'm not), Game Days in the hometown of the University of Michigan are a strange combination of locking down and scurrying out.

See, the Big House (the local nickname for the UofM stadium) holds up to 114,000 people. Most of those 114,000 people come from out of town. This means most of those 114,000 people flood the local highways and roads. The entire day before the game begins, no one can go anywhere. The highways (and there are three of them--four if you count I-275) become parking lots. Every street within five miles of the Big House is backed up. I'm always amazed that anyone manages to get to the game at all.

And then all 114,000 of these people need a place to park. The lot at the stadium fills up a day beforehand (seriously--people actually CAMP OUT in the parking lot). All the street parking within a mile of the stadium becomes engorged. The people who live near the Big House make a cottage industry of charging people to park on their front lawns. PARK HERE! shout the home-made signs. $100 FOR THE DAY! And people pay it. The high schools rent out their parking lots and shuttle buses ferry people to the game. The local supermarkets don't get in on this action, but their lots are full anyway--fans park for free at Kroger or Meijer, then try to get an Uber or Lyft driver to the stadium. If you work for either company, you want to be out there on Game Day.

Of course, all these people want to be fed. Every restaurant and bar in both towns is packed to the gills on Game Day. The takeout places are stacked with orders. Between demand and clogged streets, a pizza delivery won't arrive for at least three hours.

We non-fans keep an eye on Game Day, too. We have calendars and red-ink reminders: GAME DAY! DON'T FORGET! and MY GOD, WATCH OUT FOR GAME DAY! This isn't because we care about the game. We care about getting stuck. Before the game, we non-fans stay home, with the doors locked and the windows barred and the lights off. We huddle in the basement while the fans thunder through our city overhead. We don't make plans. We don't even venture outside. Instead, we wait. This is the lock down portion of Game Day, and it bites football cleats.

But then ... then ... the game begins. And a hush falls over the city. Everyone is in the Big House. The streets and highways are clear. Restaurants and bars and stores are empty. Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti become ghost towns. This is when we non-fans have our time. Like Morlocks at sunset, we creep outside and do anything we want! Eating! Shopping! Entertaining! We have THE WHOLE TOWN TO OURSELVES because everyone else is either at the game or watching it at home.

The cool part, though? All the retails places are fully staffed. They schedule all the workers for Game Day because they get slammed before the game. Then, during the game, the workers repair the damage and await the post-game second rush. So when we non-fans go into such places, we find a lot of staff who are just dying to wait on us. It's lovely! This is the scurry portion of Game Day.

Smart non-fans keep the game running on their cell phone or radio, not because we care about the game--again, we don't--but because we need to know how it's progressing. When the fourth quarter starts, the non-fans scurry back home and hide in the basement again, though now we're nicely fed and fully stocked. For three or four hours after the game, the streets and highways and bars and restaurants are clogged again, and we don't dare go anywhere. But we don't need to because we've already done what we need to do.

I lived in the Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area for twenty years, and this was the circle of life. Every autumn, the air turns crisp, the leaves change colors, and Game Day looms over you. But then I moved away and was gone for nearly ten years. Now I'm back, but Game Day didn't make a blip on my radar.

As it happens, I eat lunch with a group of male teachers who talk about almost nothing but sports. It's dreadfully dull, and I usually pull out my phone and read when one of the guys says, "So how's that new pitcher for the Puxatawny Groundhogs doing?" I do keep an ear out in case someone brings up a different topic, which turned out to be a good thing. Today, one of them mentioned "The game against MSU," which is Michigan State University, to which another guy said, "Yeah, they might actually beat Michigan this year."

Michigan, of course, means University of Michigan. My old reflexes kicked in, and I came to attention. I interrupted. "Are they playing in Ann Arbor or Lansing?"

They looked at me like I was a space alien. "Ann Arbor," came the answer.

"Ah." I tried to keep it casual. "What time does the game start?"

"Seven."

I blinked. "Seven?"

"Yeah. It's a night game. We won't get home until two in the morning, and that's without the drinking, har har har."

Oh, crap. Usually games start at two or three, which means we non-fans only have to huddle inside until afternoon. A seven o'clock game means we stay inside ALL DAY LONG.

But at least I got warned. On Saturday, we'll be good little Morlocks and hide in our tunnels until it's safe.

Darwin is City Manager of Ypsilanti, but we don't live there.  For city managers, this is problematic.  Whenever a city manager makes a decision that affects residents (including tax policy), the residents like to say, "You don't really care--you don't live here and this doesn't affect you."

However, we aren't portable right now.  Maksim is in high school, and we don't want to uproot him.  Also, much as I love Ypsilanti, I'm living in a place where I have a short commute after 15 years of a 45 minute commute.  I'm not willing to move back right now.

Hence The Condo.

A while ago, I called our old realtor, the one who brokered our houses in Ypsilanti before, and the search began.  We were basically looking for a condominium to be a rental property, with the rent going to pay the mortgage.  That way, Darwin would be a homeowner in Ypsilanti and could rightfully say, "I own a home here, and these policies affect me, too."

Since I know Ypsilanti, though, most of the searching fell to me.  I wanted something close to Eastern Michigan University for the simple reason that it would be easy to rent out and the resale would be higher later.  But there aren't many, and when one does show up, it goes fast!

And then we learned about one.  It's right across the street from the University.  I wasn't able to get out to see it, but Darwin was, and it was exactly what we were looking for.  Except it's occupied by tenants--the people selling it are the landlords.  Apparently the tenants had no idea the landlords were selling it, and they were moire than a little shocked when the realtor called to arrange a showing.  (Their lease ends this fall.)  The landlord did give them the option to buy first, but they didn't want to.

Anyway, we put an offer in.  After the usual wrangling, it was accepted. 

And then there was the mortgage application.  After a 20% down payment (required by the type of mortgage you can get on a rental property), the amount we'd be borrowing for the mortgage fell below what Quicken wanted to loan us.  In other words, we wouldn't be borrowing enough money and paying enough interest.  Quicken compensated by offering us the scandalously high rate of 6% over 30 years.  Darwin was shocked.  Not only was 6% way, way higher than what our credit rating should have given us--or any other human being in America--they were requiring 30 years, and we wanted 15.  Darwin went back and forth with the loan officer for about half an hour on this, and finally snarled that we'd find someone else.  He snapped the connection shut and ended the relationship.

The next day, he talked Marj, our realtor, who said, "Oh my!  You need to talk to =these= people."  And Darwin did, and they trotted us right through a proper mortgage.  Sheesh.

So we're looking to close soon, and we'll be property owners in Ypsilanti again!