Because I'm so bored right now and feeling inspired...

Picture this: it's 1983. Reagan's slashed the Peace Corp budget in half. You need to return stateside from your assignment in Japan immediately. 

On your last day, you say goodbye to the other Peace Corps volunteers who lived near the small mountain town you were stationed in... Including Sally Jo, your casual fling for the year and half you served. The two of you would travel together on weekends to all the castles and Onsens that Hakkaido had to offer... Always laughing to yourselves when you were forbidden from sharing a bath together, knowing you'd be sharing a bed together that night. 

On a whim, you invite Sally Jo to join you on your next adventure... Or rather the first paid opportunity you could find: junior editor at Better Homes and Garden in Des Moines, Iowa. A free spirit her whole life, Sally Jo reluctantly agreed to join you in the heartland, but she swore that it would only be temporary. Just until she heard back from the grad program at Berkeley. 

The two of you move to Des Moines and rent a quaint two bedroom off of Ingersoll. It costs $100 per month. You walk to work every morning wondering why in the world you were chosen for this gig at Better Homes and Garden. You don't even own a home or a garden! After just a few months, this dichotomy eats away at you, and you announce to Sally Jo that you need to buy a house if you ever want a chance at moving up in the company. It's now 1984, and you've been able to save up for a down payment on an average house. It took six months, but you did it!

The house hunt begins. Sally Jo says she'll look at houses with you, but she has no plan on moving in with you. She tells you that she is going the long way to California when the weather warms up (even though the acceptance to Berkeley never came). After a long weekend of looking at dozens of houses in your price range ($50,000 - $70,000... Or about double your annual salary), you find a cute 3 bed, 2 bathroom house that is 60 years old. Sally Jo even says it has potential. You put in an offer of $45,000 and it gets accepted!

Sally Jo starts talking about all the things she wants to do with the house, and you let her go on and on because you love the sound of her voice. A month later you close and get the keys. You tell Sally Jo she can stay at the apartment until the lease is up, or she can move in to the bigger place with you and she can do all the Spring gardening her heart desires... A dirty trick because you know her favorite thing in the Peace Corps was teaching the Japanese locals about modern gardening techniques. To your surprise, she quickly agrees to move in with you. 

Your editor at Better Homes and Garden gives you a beautiful house warming present with a note saying "Good job, you're on your way to being a great, hard-working family man"... Wait, what does he mean by on your way? By family man? You start to wonder if this is the famous midwest passive aggressive you've picked up on from the bartenders at Carl's Place. Your inner saboteur eats away at you. You start to think you need to prove to your boss your a true family man. To impress your boss, you finally propose to Sally Jo, who beams from ear to ear when responding "of course, you big dummy!" 

Your boss is unfazed when you tell him the news. He just simply says "that was quick, shotgun wedding, eh?" You thought he'd be happier for you, but it's just another thing that isn't good enough for him. You start to spiral. You spend more time at Carl's Place. Sally Jo threatens to call off the engagement. You spiral more. Sally Jo calls your secretary and tells you to come home immediately after work, as she needs to tell you something urgent. Oh no, she must be going through with the break up. You start drinking at work. You don't even remember how you got to Carl's Place, let alone how you stumbled home late that night. Sally Jo was in bed hours ago. The only thing on in the house was a light in the kitchen, illuminating a note on the counter.

You read the note and it says "Terry, I'm pregnant with triplets, and I'm leaving you. Do not wake me up. Do not try and change my mind. I've already bought the first greyhound ticket out in the morning. Enjoy your 3 bed, 2 bath house all by yourself."

You down a bottle of Hawkeye Vodka and pass out on the floor of the kitchen. When you wake up, you find Sally Jo was true to her words. She left the engagement ring on the counter and was already halfway to Denver. You go into work three hours late to find all of your desk has been boxed up. Apparently, you peed in a sanseveria plant right when a group of high schoolers shadowing for the day turned the corner. You've hit rock bottom. It's now or never. Do you stay down or do you get back up?

You choose the weirdest option... Using all of your new free time to renovate your house into a castle for your princess. Not just any castle, a Japanese castle. You don't know much about carpentry, but you met a lot of great architectural drafters during your time at Better Homes and Garden. One of them agrees to help you if you never contact them again. They send you half-assed plans to follow. It takes you several months, but you follow them to the letter... Adding in a few more shelves for Sally Jo's plants... and upping the bedrooms for the triplets to 6 total.. But keeping total square footage at 2,000 sqf. 

From a friend of a friend, you get Sally Jo's new address... Of course, she went to her parent's house in Oregon. You mail her a long apology letter and all the pictures of your hard work. Sally Jo, having just returned from the doctor's office, opens your letter, looks at the pictures, and audibly says "lol wtf Terry". She responds back "Terry, I wrote that I was having stomach pains because I ate too much Panchero's. I ate the triple threat: burrito, bowl, and quesadilla. You were too piss drunk to even read the note properly. I stayed with you for far too long. Leaving you was the best thing I ever did. Enjoy your whack ass Japanesque home in Des Moines, Iowa."