Several years ago at our old house, we noticed one afternoon that the door to our shed was off its hinges and, unsurprisingly, all the rakes, shovels and similar tools were gone. Our neighbor told us we'd paid our "urban living tax" and we'd be set for at least a few years.

Now we own a new house and the urban living tax has come due again. First our rocking chair walked off the front porch. Then we got a phone call from our carpenters. Did we move their tools? Nope. They lost a bunch of tools and all of Justin's tool boxes full of small tools were gone. All of our pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, clamps, scrapers and lots of other things we haven't remembered yet.

It's not the end of the world, of course, but it is just one more thing to slow down the purple house progress.