I was once what you’d call a “true New Yorker.” I took pride in my deep knowledge of all that the city had to offer—from the Hard Rock Café to Madame Tussauds wax museum. And I’d been that way since I was a boy of twenty-three, when I moved to the Big Apple from my home of Glen Rock, New Jersey. But, with prices climbing over the years, and space feeling increasingly tight, I realized I had to do something I swore I’d never do: move my family out of the city and into an inflatable bounce house.

There was a time when I thought I’d be lost without the constant hustle and bustle of big-city life—back when I was just a bright-eyed young financial consultant. Now everything I need is within the twenty-square-foot expanse of our vinyl dream home. There’s a state-of-the-art ball pit, a Velcro compartment for our shoes, and a slide that rubs all the skin off the back of your legs if you go down it too fast. The only thing that’s missing is a first-aid kit.

When I think of all the money I’ve sunk on city rent, I feel like such a nincompoop. At one point, I was paying three thousand dollars a month for a gloomy one-bedroom swarming with mice. Meanwhile, I bought our inflatable bounce house for two hundred bucks at JimsBounceWorld.wordpress.com. It’s basically all windows, with an amount of natural light that Jim himself described as “relentless.” And, while the mice still swarm at night, I can sometimes catapult them out all at once if I bounce just right.

My wife, Tina, has never been happier. She’s always saying things like, “I can’t believe this is my life” and “Could this thing get any hotter?” and “I think these sun blisters require immediate medical attention.” We’re so fortunate that I convinced her to leave her career as a respected marketing director so that she could be a full-time bounce-homemaker. Now I work remotely, while Tina spends her days patching holes in the vinyl, caking herself in S.P.F. 100 sunscreen, and negotiating with an aggressive flock of boat-tailed grackles that have overtaken the slide and learned how to weaponize their poop.

Then, there’s our fifteen-year-old son, Jayden. You might expect a teen like him to be moody and hostile after being yanked away from his friends, his school, and his one true passion (hocking loogies at pedestrians from our apartment’s second-story window). But not our Jayden. He’s embraced the Hop ’n’ Bop Palace 3000 more than any of us. Just last week, I asked him to take out the trash, and he responded by pummelling me with water balloons and calling me an “inflatable fuck.” Then, he dove into the ball pit to vape. He has such a zest for bounce-house life!

A lot of people ask me why I didn’t just buy a “real” house—one that doesn’t require a commercial air pump to remain standing. When I hear this, I laugh so hard, it makes the whole Palace wobble. Buy a house in this market? Do I look like a complete chucklehead?

Of course, our new life isn’t all rainbows and butterflies and charley horses. I had to somersault through a lot of red tape for the permit to keep our bounce house here, in the parking lot of this shuttered RadioShack. And, each month, I pay hundreds in fees to the Inflatable Bounce-Homeowners’ Association, a hardened group of retired carnival clowns. Also, I’ll admit that my love life with Tina has lost some of its vigor (she must be self-conscious about all her oozing sun blisters—they really are a turnoff.)

But it’s all worth it for my family. It was time to give them the kind of life that simply can’t be found in a big city. Next month, when Jayden turns sixteen, I’m surprising him with his very own Power Wheels Jeep Wrangler with realistic car sounds. ♦