House Shopping: Who Will Adopt This Child?

My wife and I are considering adopting a 23-year-old college dropout. We found him today while on a house shopping trip. He's cute, right? (Actually, that picture is not him. This is just a random photo I found on the Internet of a guy who looks like he's about college age, and who looks like someone who might still live with his parents).

Here's the story: We were making the rounds through some open houses in the metro Detroit area when we stumbled upon a place that was being sold by owner. It's always weird when a homeowner takes you on a tour through their own place, and this tour especially ranked high on the awkward meter.

First, the lady of the home -- reddish-gray-haired woman, about 65ish -- greeted us at the door. Her casual pattern sweater and jeans outfit tipped me off that we were in for a for-sale-by-owner experience. She walked us through the family room, where the husband -- white-haired man, about 65ish, wearing a matching sweatsuit -- was sprawled out on the couch reading a newspaper. "Don't mind me," he said. "No problem," I thought. "As long as you don't mind when I lean over you with my balls in your face to get a closer look at the window trim."

Actually it wasn't all that bad. After a few minutes of hearing how many different ways she's arranged the kitchen and the furniture in the attached "cozy" room, she sent us off to explore on our own. We started in the basement, which pretty much looked like a basement, tiptoed back up the stairs, quietly snuck past "them" on the main floor and darted up to the second floor.

Alone, we walked and talked freely about the square footage and how colorful the upstairs rooms were, except for this third bedroom that I noticed across the way, which was painted all black. "This is weird," I said loudly as I entered the dark room.

That's when I stumbled upon the 20-something kid, sitting at his computer. Startled, he quickly ripped his headphones off. "Oh. Hi. Oh," he said. "Sorry. Man. Sorry," I replied.

When we got back downstairs, "the lady" told us that her and the husband were selling the place because they want to move into a ranch-style home because the husband has knee problems. She didn't mention anything about the college-age kid going with them.

Minus the old couple being in it, my wife and I really liked this house. It had charm. It had character... It had a son. Yep. I'm pretty sure that kid isn't planning on moving out of that computer chair anytime soon, let alone out of the home. He's as permanent as a beam. So now it's up to us to decide if we want to hang a picture on him, cover him up, pretend he's not there or make him a fixture in our lives. We'll first have to get approved for a mortgage, and then the next step will be getting custody of our new young man boy... I think we'll name him Cody.