| "AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HUMOR"TM
SHOWCASE
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April / May 2006 Contest Results |
No Place Like
Home
By
Denise Malloy, Montana
My friend and I
recently attended our local Tour de Starter Castles, beautiful homes
mostly out of normal folks’ price ranges. It never hurts to dream. But
more perplexing than the upper six digit prices of these architectural
wonders was the pristine state of each and every home.
Admittedly, some
were brand new and on the market so the spotlessness was understandable.
But some of these homes were clearly occupied. The level of cleanliness
and organization was overwhelming.
Closets with
shoes organized by color, style, and season. Men’s shirts were hung
neatly in the closet in color groups, subdivided by tint and hue.
Alphabetized pantries. I’m pretty sure the workshop in one of the
garages was organized in some form of the Dewey Decimal System.
Were these people for real? Do they devote their entire lives to
cleaning and organization?
I surmised
instead that these homes must be occupied by some form of alien beings.
As we walked through these homages to the architectural gods, I scanned
the smiling faces in the highly polished framed photos for evidence of
these alien pod-creatures living among us, perhaps identifiable only by
their slightly larger heads.
These Hummer
Home neighborhoods evidently have some rather strict covenants. Clearly,
dogs must be potty trained or a self-cleaning breed because despite the
number of dog houses and invisible fence flags, I saw no dog poop
whatsoever. Having lived with two dogs the last ten years, I think I’m
onto a fairly basic law of the canine world. If you have dogs, poop
happens.
The other thing
that appeared to be covenant governed was the requirement that the
homeowners scour their tires before pulling on their driveways and into
their garages. Not one inch of concrete or asphalt displayed so much as
a speck of dirt, dust or rogue tire track. I felt bad walking on the
asphalt in my shoes and even wore my standard issue paper booties right
across the driveway so I wouldn’t leave unsightly tracks.
I also noticed
that there was no evidence of children living in any of these homes
despite rooms decorated straight from the pages of Pottery Barn Kids. A
few artfully placed matching framed photos of children were present in
some of the homes though. That explains it. The pictures are much easier
to clean up after.
Another
abundantly clear fact is that size matters. One house had a great room
where you could easily park a Cessna and still have room to throw a
dinner party for twelve. Many bedrooms had sitting rooms, probably
because they are so large you have to sit down and rest while walking to
the closet. The master bedroom closet in one was bigger than my entire
first house -– and probably cost more as well.
Another home had
a shower in the master bath so big it looked like a carwash, with shower
jets pointing at you from all angles. It probably had a computerized
feature that would clean your personal undercarriage as well.
So as my friend
and I compared notes about the show, we were impressed with the beauty
of the homes. But it was disappointing that none of them appeared to be
for real people, with real lives, and real checkbooks. Some of us simply
have no possibility of a housekeeper or boarding school for the
children. I would have loved to open just one closet door and get
knocked off my feet when the contents jammed in there came flying out as
if spring loaded. In fact, I would have felt right at home.
Returning home
that day, I turned into my uneven gravel driveway with the weeds vying
for my attention on both sides. I pulled into the dark garage and
promptly ran over my son’s bicycle –- the light bulb burned out two
months ago. I opened the car door just narrowly missing the pile of wood
and tools stacked there for building the deck –- a project started last
year.
I thought about
how nice it would be to live in a new, clean, organized home. I wished I
could put on Dorothy’s little red “Wizard of Oz” shoes, click my heels
together and say, “there’s no place like a new home,” and magically find
my house transformed.
If only my shoes
weren’t buried by the clothes that fell off the single closet bar that
snapped last week, I just might be able to find them.
http://www.denisemalloy.com
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