I drove out to see one at night because I wanted to know what I'd actually be owning

The sector had stayed abstract to me no matter how much I read about it, so on a Sunday evening I drove forty minutes to a campus off a state highway to look at one. I expected something dramatic. What's there is a long gray box with no windows, a fence set well back from the road, and a gravel yard full of equipment on concrete pads with warning signs on the cages. There's a hum. It isn't loud from the road, it's just constant, and you notice it when you turn the car off.

A pickup came down the access road while I was standing there and the driver slowed and looked at me for about five seconds. I waved. He waved and kept going. I felt like an idiot with binoculars at a birdwatching spot I hadn't earned.

What stuck with me was the loading dock. One dock, one door, no trucks. A retail box that size would have twelve trailers and a striped lot. This thing had four cars in the whole employee lot on a Sunday. Whoever pays that rent isn't paying for people or shelves, they're paying for the wires and the pipes and the fact that it exists on that spot.

I drive slow on decisions and this didn't speed me up. It did change what questions I'm asking. I stopped wondering about the square footage and started wondering who guarantees the electricity, and for how long, and what the tenant does if it stops. I don't own anything in this space and might never. But standing next to that hum was worth the gas.