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We have owned our own house for just over a year now. People casually mentioned that owning a house would be "a lot of work" just like they sometimes casually mention that after having a child, a couple "may not get a lot of sleep." I believe these to be understatements.
Here is what they should say: "Your house will consume your whole entire live and you will never have fun again. I'm warning you! Think about it first!!!" And... "If you have a baby, you will be so sleep deprived that not only will you get bags under your eyes, you will get air bags under your eyes. You will need these because you will undoubtedly fall asleep while driving!" There is far too much subtlety about these things. Owning a house is a lot of work. It would be a tad bit easier for us if the previous occupants had taken care of certain things. "The previous occupants," is a term I now use with distaste. If I am outside, I spit after I say it. I avoid spitting inside the house, although it probably wouldn't make much difference. I am quite certain, from the condition of our carpet, that the previous owners ran a petting zoo solely for animals with intestinal problems. I envision a Yak who lived up to his name and a bear named Poo. I'm also sure there was a goat. Technically, the house is still a petting zoo of sorts; the animals are just smaller. We got rid of the termites so that the ants would have a place to live. I like to think that it's the "ant elite" who get to come into the house, while all the lower class ants hang out in the yard doing manual labor like moving all of the leaves from the neighbor's tree into our yard. Snails have a reputation for being slow, but I suspect that in private they speed things up a bit, judging by the rate at which they reproduce. They are getting out of hand at our place. We have one that is the size of a collie. I call him "Bucky" and I go out to pet him now and then. We also have a lot of mushrooms in our yard, so Bucky may or may not be real. I'm not sure. The pigeons remain a constant problem. We put up one of those plastic owls so they have something to snuggle with. Sometimes the neighbor's cat comes over and has tea and bran muffins with them. Again, the mushrooms may be a factor here. Speaking of the yard, I also think the previous occupants (Achh... Patoo!) intentionally planted fifteen different varieties of grass as some sort of weird botanical experiment. This was either before or after they sabotaged the sprinklers, broke the oven, and poured honey on the blinds. That's not to say we don't love our house. We love it. We really do. But just because you love your child doesn't mean you have to like its poopie diapers. I read that somewhere. So... let's close with this final image: Before the house was shown to us, I suspect that it was serviced by the Laurel and Hardy Painting Company. I can picture Laurel tripping on the bathroom rug and spilling paint all over the shower wall, or Hardy getting hit in the head with a ladder as he spills paint on the bricks in front of the fireplace. As Laurel slides down the banister, there is, no doubt, a huge splotch of paint on his backside that causes audience members to laugh uproariously. The film ends with the two buddies chasing each other down the walkway, paint splashing on the concrete and into the flowerbeds. As they pass beyond the gate, a circular closing screen narrows down to focus on Laurel's behind where the paint splotch now forms the words "The End." At least, that's how I picture it. |
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