buck.

I was sitting in the designated signing seat, giving the blue ink pen a workout. Across the table sat the people who were selling my house to me. The woman was talkative and friendly, classy and obviously wealthy. She was too old for her red hair to be natural, but she pulled it off. She chatted easily with the realtor about houses and how they were driving to Florida for their grandchild's christening.

The man was quiet. You might call him gruff if you weren't used to soft-spoken southern men. He had gray hair, a dark handlebar mustache, and was wearing a flannel work shirt. He introduced himself as "Buck," though that wasn't what he was signing with his blue ink pen. He must have been wealthy, too, though he didn't give off that air the way his wife did. He was just Buck.

During a lull in all the signing, he passed a ring of three shiny silver keys across the table to me and smiled. I was shy to take them. I'd given away a check for a huge sum, signed my name a billion times, and filled out a change of address form, but it was the moment that a quiet gentleman slid three keys across the table when it struck me: holy crap, I just bought a house.