- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 0
- 9
-
Sparkle (0)
A few years ago, we briefly toyed with the idea of purchasing a house. I have literally no idea how it happened, but one day, we were like, "Grown-ups ... buy ... houses. Yes? Right?" and the next day we were half-heartedly strolling through a series of homes. One had a purported "wine cellar" that, to us, looked much more like a lair in which a young lady might be urged to apply lotion on her skin, lest she get the hose again. There was no wine. NO WINE AT ALL. Only fear and mildew.
The worst (by which I mean "best") house was one that we dubbed Vagina House due to the pink-hued bedroom of one of its inhabitants, decorated entirely in sketches, paintings and posters of lady business and images of or related to the lady business milieu.
Vagina House was and will forever be the yardstick whereby we measure any and all future prospective real estate purchases. "Well," we might say to each other, somewhere down the road, "this is bad and all, but it's no Vagina House," or alternately, "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD, IT'S WORSE THAN VAGINA HOUSE. FLEE! FLEEEEE!!"
As you may have guessed, we quickly (like, in less than a week) abandoned our hare-brained house-buying idea. We own a nice (if seemingly ever-shrinking and possibly haunted) apartment, we love our neighborhood, friends, kids' friends and respective commutes, and so we figured we'd stay put for the foreseeable future. And as I sat here earlier tonight, watching J pack up for a business trip, I am even GLADDER that we didn't pursue Operation: Get House, House the Word for "Home," Not Scruffy Oddly Hot Persnickety Doctor But While We're on the Subject, MMMM.
(It's a long but necessary title, you see. For clarity.)
Every time he goes out of town -- EVERY TIME -- I set up ridiculous booby traps and sleep with one of his golf clubs at my side to fend off ... the copious men who have plotted to rappel up to our ninth-floor dwelling? Tiger Woods? I don't even know. The point is, deep down, I figure that the kids and I are relatively safe in this building, and I CANNOT IMAGINE the mental energy I'd be expending on Potential Danger Scenarios if we lived in an actual house, unprotected by height and burly doormen.
Thanks to the cumulative effects of numerous films on my impressionable mind, there is not a house genre out there that isn't fraught with some sort of intruder-related peril.
Observe: Farmhouse -- Zombies. Murdersheep. Children of the corn. Cornfields in general. (See: The Lovely Bones, Signs, Food, Inc.)
Lakehouse/cabin -- Swamp Things. Deliverance people. Jason Voorhees. Keanu Reeves. Bears. Deer. (Well, that last one is really my husband's arch-nemesis. He's CONVINCED they're all going to fling themselves bodily in the direction of our car when we drive on country roads in the summer. Like they're just lying in wait for our specific car. OKAY, J.)
Beach house -- Landsharks. Megasharks. Possibly Giant Octopus.
Regular, brightly-lit house on suburban street -- Amityville-type horrors, and THIS, basically:
Now, granted, the Broadview commercials have been phenomenally and hilariously mocked by Target Women (I love you, Sarah Haskins!) ...
and SNL ...
...but I still can't wrap my head around getting over the thought of The Homicidal Crowbar-Wielding Intruders that apparently just lie in wait for you, not unlike the deer of my husband's nightmares. I have to know: How do you people with houses do it? Does there come a point where you shrug off these thoughts (you know, assuming that you, like me, ever had them in the first place. Ha ... ha?), and embrace things like logic and reason and sanity? Or ... should we just commit to a lifetime of apartment living now?
Metalia also blogs here.
