Or, The Joys of Home Ownership
Written by J. Mitchell Brown
h, the joys of home ownership!
I’ve always had things a little bit backwards. And while I have been blessed way, WAY beyond what I deserve for this life, I have for the longest time done things a bit unconventionally. Case in point, for several years now, I have owned a home I did not live in and lived in a home that I did not own. Now where I was living, I’m convinced, was as close as you’re going to get to heaven without signing in with St. Peter, but it was nice to have the septic tank overflow and just call someone and say, “Um…so-an-so? Yeah, I think you need to do something about this.”
God has a terrific sense of humor, though, and I have been on the receiving end of it several times, not the least of which is the new home my wife and I just HAD to have.
We decided we were going to make this latest move with order and forethought. We would properly pack our own boxes and clearly label them. We would move only what we needed and have a garage sale for our junk. Stuff that was going in the warehouse would be wrapped and protected and organized in storage. We’d paint the house before moving in and plan how we’d furnish the place before bringing in the first box.
What occurred, though, was a chuckling God reminding me about the time I rode a bike through a brand new landlord-supplied screened door.
After getting everything in and settled in our newly appointed and painted home, we were enjoying a weekend with my in-laws, showing off the place when I noticed a growing brown stain on our freshly painted white ceiling. Oh, that’s just the upstairs bathtub leaking into the crawl-space. No big deal, let’s sit by the pretty fireplace. *GASP – CHOKE* Oh, that’s nothing….that’s just the flue not getting enough draw to pull the smoke up the chimney. We just had a new washer and dryer installed (after we learned there was no hot water pipe running to the old washer – had to install that, too!). Let me wash that smoke out of your clothes. What is that water seeping out from under the downstairs pantry? It couldn’t be. No. Is it…? Why, yes….that’s the drainage water from the washer. Where’s the washer? Oh, it’s upstairs. No. I’m not too sure why it’s pouring down the inside of that wall.
On and on and on. And I wish I could say that I am exaggerating. But I’m not. My cute little house that was so charming and quaint had now become a money sucking abyss, laughing cruelly at my diminishing bank account as I think back to how nice it was to just call someone with my problems. Especially someone who had their own checking account.
But as in everything in life, its just stuff that happens. You laugh about it. I’ll sit down twenty years from now and say to my wife, “Remember that time we bought that house that didn’t even have hot water run to the washer? What were we thinking?”
Our latest saga is our downstairs bathroom. If you can call it that. It’s more like a telephone booth with a potty in it. If you go in there the wrong way…well…good luck getting out. It’s like watching a dog try to back up.
Why we didn’t paint this one room when we had the entire rest of the house painted, I’ll never know. I hate painting with unequalled passion and freely admit I don’t have the patience or the drive to be as meticulous as painting requires. I want to slap it on and see instant results. I do not want to tape, brush, prime, trim, roll, wait, roll again and clean up. But nonetheless, something needed to be done to the beyond-obnoxious black wallpaper with big red flowers. So, my bride and I went to the hardware store.
“I think a nice yellow would look good in there,” I suggested.
“I agree,” she said to my surprise.
As we walked down the aisle towards a wall of rainbows, I suddenly realized how egregious a mistake I had made. Before I can feign a seizure or illness and get out of there, I heard my wife ask, “How about Gladiola? Or perhaps Pumpkin-Seed. Or do you think that Daylily Dreams is best?”
“Yeller,” I mutter. “It needs to be yeller.”
“I know, but do you like this Lemon-Zest or Butternut Squash? I sort of like the Golden Poppy, too.”
“Yes, but how often do we need to fertilize it?” I asked.
“What?”
“Do we have good drainage?” I’m so confused. I want a taco.
“No, you nimrod. We’re in the paint aisle. We’re picking a color for the bathroom. Now focus: Dandelion or Goldenrod?”
“Wh…wh…what color do we have in the kitchen?” I ask, trying with my all to follow and be helpful.
“Great question! We need to make sure that our bathroom flows with the kitchen. We have Marsh Grass and Plumbago in there.”
“Wh…wh…why can’t we just have yellow to go with our blue and green?”
“Oh, just forget about it,” she said with exasperation. “Just go to the garden center and talk to the plants. I’ll take care of this.”
Like the Brer Rabbit in the briar patch, I laughed all the way down the aisle towards the garden center and the real pansies, gardenias, and gerbera daisies and all their pretty colors with simple names that I can follow. Besides, who ever heard of a plant called Red? Or a shrub called Green? That’d just be weird.
