It should perhaps be noted that while I am a poor college student (although, I do realize that the fact that I go to college, have a home, and eat three meals a day (more-or-less) pretty much puts me right out of the truly POOR category)

ANYWAY

It should be noted that while I am a poorish college student, I rent a home with three of my friends in a fairly affluent part of the world. It is a small community, encompassing a small pond and a large chunk of waterfront property. Many of the houses are rented year-round - during the school year to college students like myself, and the summer months to wealthier summer residents. Some of the landlords make a killing renting out their properties to families for several hundred dollars a week.

Many of the homes here are the kind of homes that are just begging to be called charming - small little one-story affairs that have flagstone walks bordered with flowering bushes, small trees, and potted plants. They have mailboxes made from found objects - one house has one made from a short bit of wide iron pipe, with a small circular wooden door and a (charmingly angled) rusty hinge, or else the boxes have sweet little scenes painted on them - flowers, or the backs of two Adirondack chairs facing a sunset. These houses ooze quaintness, in other words.

Other houses strive to make a sort of opposite impression. They are the modern monstrosities; large, tall, grey wads of ugliness that obstruct everyone's view of the pond or bay. They are often three stories high, with flat fronts and long sloping backs. They are ungainly and cold. They sit across the road from the charming houses and have large placards announcing that they are "ONE DUNE" or some similar nonsense mounted on the streetward sides of their homes, sitting around the middle of the second story. Nothing else breaks up the plain grey facade.

Another sign of excess- one home has an in-ground swimming pool from which one can see the bay.

Houses that are one or two houses in from the beachfront, or strive to be like super-models. Thin, tall, and perfectly groomed.

One wonders if the inhabitants of these oddly-proportioned homes use the first two floors, or if they confine their daily activities to the two rooms that afford them a view of their neighbors' identical super-model houses.

Of course, there are "normal families" here too - peeking into the backyards, one can see swings and play areas, tricycles and brightly colored balls. So perhaps not all has gone the way of pleasing the summer renters. And each morning you can see sleepy moms waiting in their sweatpants and bathrobes to send the little ones off to school.

Kind of a melancholy return home. It is dark, and the only lights are the occasional lighted window or the blue glow of a television in someone's living room. I am a bit envious of the warmth and happiness that they seem to imply, and while I may not be ready to face people, I am certainly not ready to do without.