My husband is a goof. He's beautiful and adorable and smart and goofy. Often he creates words, he exaggerates at every opportunity, and he has a dream world in that cranium of his that sounds glorious and highly improbably.
Lately we have been looking at properties, so that we can escape the city and get a bit rural, get a little dirty and see how it feels. I just hope I don't see a snake, but that's an entirely different topic.
Anyway, when I've searched for homes with the realtors while my husband is working I must consider carefully if I could see myself living in the home. Is it really worthy of a return trip with my hubby, Oliver, to show him the place? Because if it isn't, I'm in trouble.
Oliver sees a home and envisions himself living there within the time it takes the realtor to walk to the lockbox on the door. My dear sweet Oliver is inspecting the landscape and mentally building a new brick mailbox before he steps over the threshold.
I think he could be at home in an igloo if it could just have a fireplace inside. A mud hut would be as attractive to him as a mansion because no matter the situation, in his mind everything is doable. Oh, a hole in the ceiling from a previous rainstorm? That's what tarps are for. Soft floors underneath the carpet? Fine. He doesn't like carpet, and isn't the dirt under the subfloor much less maintenance? I mean, it's dirt! Entirely liveable because he doesn't even know if we own a vacuum cleaner, much less in which closet it could be kept.
The last piece of acreage that we inspected we visited initially together. This is a dangerous proposition because if it is entirely horrible I have to think of ways for him to see that. Subtlety always works best with men of course. And in this case I was right to be nervous.
We couldn't go inside, as the owner was out of town, and needed to "straighten up" the place. Which left us the option of leaving or window shopping. We chose the latter.
The home was infested with animals who had been left to their own devices -- feces everywhere, the smell of cat urine floating out through the glass of the windows -- and we're terribly allergic to animals. The bathroom plumbing runs to a lagoon, which is a big puddle of crap, to put it bluntly. (And here we had thought, "Oh, what a pretty little pond!! (Long pause as smiles fade) Hmm. Do you smell something?") The kitchen was indescribable, literally, because every horizontal space was covered over with something moldy or gooey, probably permanently adhered.
But then I walked in the back yard, and saw the view from the hill. I'll take it!
And the kicker: Oliver loved everything about the place, pustules and all, except the color of the rotting hardi-board. "I can't live in a pink house. I'll paint it first thing."
He's never painted in his life.
And I feel tired.
No comments:
Post a Comment