“Kharacters”

As per usual standards when you move to a new place you need a place to live, unless of course you are one of those brave souls that opts out of housing all together and lives in their car.  I must say from experience, finding housing for example, in Homer, Alaska, just for three months during the busy season aka summer, was a royal pain in the butt.  It just gave me one big fat headache what between the constant, “Oh I am sorry we need a year lease” and the, “We already have tenants for the summer.”  I wish I could just say that the housing hunt is only a hassle in Homer, Alaska, but I know, and everyone else knows, that this is just not the case.  Wherever you go, housing is always a challenge as you hunt for the perfect spot to set up shop for the season, a year, or a lifetime.  In this housing hunt post, I hope to show a lighter side of this dismal chore in the form of a hilarious story about an incredibly entertaining and odd character we ran into in the search for our perfect summer haunt in Alaska.

“Kharacters” spelled with a “K” is a popular late night bar located on Pioneer Street in Homer, Alaska.  It pretty much looks like a little ramshackle cabin with a few beer signs shining through its dusty windows.  In tribute to this local’s favorite hotspot, I am going to refer to the gentleman in this story as “Mr. Kharacter.”  By the end of the tale, I am hoping that you will agree that this name is quit fitting for the gentleman we initially contacted while still down in the lower 48 about potentially renting his fully furnished apartment for the summer.  Over the phone and through viewing his Craigslist page, we thought we were getting a steal of a deal, but after meeting Mr. Kharacter, we realized, with tires spinning out on Evan’s Silver Bullet, there are always hidden truths behind anything that looks too good to be true.

The Tale

We pulled up in front of Mr. Kharacter’s house ready to view the place we might potentially rent for the summer.  Soon enough, though, we learned that Mr. Kharacter (an aging 60 year old man with white hair and an unpleasant musty smell), his girlfriend, and his seventeen year old son, ALSO, resided in the rear of the ramshackle house in separate quarters.  By quarters, I mean a one room kitchen, living room and bedroom combo with a small office to the side that would be a dream house for any member of “Hoarders Inc.”  The place was so packed with junk you could barely move around, BUT, we did not jump to conclusions yet because the front part of the house where we would reside was much nicer and had plenty of space.  The only catch was, we couldn’t move into the front unit until July 1^st because he currently had tenants until then, so he told us he would show us his sons house where we could stay in the meantime practically for free.  So we said sure let’s go check it out!  Cheap rent…why not!  Mr. Kharacter suggested that we all go over in his mini van, but in order for all of us to fit, we had to move an incredible amount of junk out of his car, because, naturally, this is just what you have to do as a hoarder.  This is when things began to get a little interesting.  As we began to move cracked paintings, dented sewing machines, and old kitchen supplies into his house he started to talk about his father.  According to Mr. Kharacter, his Native American father was not only at Pearl Harbor and survived when the historical attack occurred, but was a star in many western TV shows and movies, and was known for being part of a famous pizza commercial that ran in the 80’s.  Ummmm ok??  Yep things definitely started to get interesting.

After we had finally unpacked his mini van, we drove up the road to his son’s house, which upon first sight looked pretty nice.  As we stepped across the threshold to take a look around everything seemed relatively normal.  It was clean and had a nice kitchen, but the minute I stepped into that house SOMETHING just absolutely wreaked.  It smelled like a dead animal combined with rotting garbage.  I didn’t say anything, though, but I did keep sneaking peeks at Mimi and Evan to see if they were having issues with the stench as well.  As Mr. Kharacter showed us the downstairs, especially the back bedroom, he agreed that it smelled pretty bad too.  Ok, good, at least I wasn’t the only one who was having issues with the smell.  He then proceeded to ramble on (he was quite the talker) about a wolf as being the reason for the smell.  His exact words were, “Yeah man this lady and her son were living here and they owned a wolf.”  I was like, “Umm what?  A wolf?  A real wild wolf?”  He said, “Yeah man like a real wolf.  Looked like the wolverine from the movie Werewolf in Paris.  You ever seen that movie?”  I responded with, “Mmmm no, sorry, missed that one,” while trying to hold my composure as best as I could.  Mr. Kharacter then rambled on some more about the wolf in relation to having to clean the carpets to get rid of the smell.

We trudged back up the stairs to the main floor ready to get the heck out of there, but Mr. Kharacter jumped in first and said, “Oh you need to see the rest of the house!”  He led us around a corner and opened the door to the garage, and BAM the wreaking, wrenching smell hit us head on with full force.  The smell was so horrendous I almost gagged, but I now knew why the house smelled like a gurgling, dirty, old garbage dump.  Spot center, sprawled out across the garage floor was the dead carcass, still oozing blood, of an enormous brown bear.  WELCOME TO ALASKA!

At this point we just wanted to get the heck out of dodge, but this was a slight problem since Mr. Kharacter drove us over and, well, he was just not ready to say goodbye yet.  Considering the chatterbox that he was, he was ready for a good ol’ chat, thankfully, outside on the porch away from the stench that had consumed the house owing to the dead bear.

For the next half an hour, Mr. Kharacter went on and on about the most ludicrous subjects that were so absolutely ridiculous I could not help myself but smirk and try and keep in as many giggles as possible.  Keep in mind, too, that this whole conversation began from just talking about potential summer jobs.  Mr. Kharacter began his speech by first enlightening us about USGS submarines tracking a 500 foot serpent off of its undulating underwater movements out in the Kachemak Bay that surrounds Homer.  The serpent talk then lead into a lengthy discussion about the Bigfoot tribe that resides across the bay.  According to Mr. Kharacter, about 20 years ago, two young hotshots went across the bay and killed a Bigfoot tribe member.  In order to cover up the “scandel,” the government sewed rocks into the belly of the Bigfoot and tossed him to sea.  After speaking about the Bigfoot tribe, Mr. Kharacter went into his most passionate subject, which was regarding the US Government’s top-secret projects in Alaska.  This talk entailed everything from spy planes touching down in Homer, to the Kachemak Bay and Cook Inlet being connected by underwater CIA tunnels, to Delta Force members lurking in the woods.  He then proceeded to finish this lengthy discussion with none other than a dash of UFO talk, or more precisely, a zooming orb making a sharp, right hand turn at 5,000 miles an hour in the night sky.

Finally, after an extreme amount of effort put forth in keeping from bursting out in laughter, especially when I would catch Evan or Mimi’s eyes, we finally convinced Mr. Kharacter it was time to leave.  Needless to say, we would NOT be responding again to his Craigslist ad!

Afterthought

After an excessive amount of effort put forth, we did eventually find a great place to live that would allow us to rent by month, that was located in town, and that was reasonably priced!  Everything always seems to work out in the end!