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Home, Home
In My Range
by Elizabeth
Bussey Sowdal |
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I
am done, and I mean it! No more house flipping, first time home, what
can you get for your money television shows for me, and I am not joking!
I cannot abide watching one more real estate agent who appears to
be all hair-do and pelvis and no thighs or good sense describe in
very glowing terms the sleek modernity of a contemporary, cozy condo
which is a steal for only $200,000. All five hundred square feet of
it. I know that you will understand that I am not bragging, especially
since I have been whining to you about the sorry state of our siding
for years, but our bedroom is five hundred square feet. And we do
not have a big house. Five hundred square feet for $200,000. Yelp!
Two hundred thousand American dollars. That’s crazy.
And the marks, I mean the shoppers, are all gushy and impressed, "Oh
yeah! I like that shelf over the toilet! And look, both my feet almost
fit into the shower stall. There’s room for a skillet in the kitchen.
And ooo, honey, look! Great patio! I love it!" Okay, first off, that
is not a patio, it is a front stoop. Not a step, it is not that dignified.
It is nuthin’ more nor less than a front stoop and you think it is
a patio because you are hypnotized by The Hair and maybe because you
are also a stoop.
I am not a TV watcher. But this summer I kind of got started on it
and just like the Bridge Mix Candy and the cigs and Cheetos, I got
hooked on it. It started off with "Bridezillas." What a hoot! Got
tired of that and moved on to the crime shows. Don’t know why and
yes, I am a little ashamed of myself. Maybe it’s the theme song –
you can’t beat it for catchy, "Bad boys, bad boys. . . ." Then somebody
or the other’s "fab life," which I guess if fab means screeching evil
banshee, it was quite fab. What I learned from that is that if Mattel
is nice enough to make a Barbie of you, you should probably just say
"thank you" and then SHUT UP!!!
Then I got started on the home shows. First it was the decorating
shows. All of them. Every chance I got. They paid off for me in a
small way. We fixed our bedroom up, and at the risk of gushing or
possibly seeming like I am trying to sound "fab," it came out cute.
And we were PDS about it too (pretty durned smart). We bought two
reed table runners and three hammered aluminum plate chargers and
voile! A gorgeous wall treatment, simple, contemporary, pleasing to
the eye and we did not break through the double digits on our spending.
We were justifiably proud of it, I think. Well. The down side is that
the only possible choice for a comforter and pillows to polish things
off cost considerably more than everything else put together. But
it’s warm. And by the way, we have more than one wall in the room.
So there was the little matter of getting those fixed up. And there
was no way we could keep the old curtains with the new comforter.
Just no way. One thing, I soon learned, leads to another when you
are decorating and eventually it dawned on me that I had better stop.
I did learn though, that if you keep enough clothes piled on it, the
Ab Lounger looks good with any style decor. In the words of my friend
Dan, "Reel, reel good."
That might be why I got interested in the shows where people, some
people anyway, made money rather than spent it. Not counting the stoops
who think that 7x10 is a spacious livingroom and well worth paying
a premium price to have.
Nope. I’m done. I have turned the TV off for the last time this summer
and I am going back to watching the goldfish and reading. Did you
think that if I turned off the TV I might get caught up on some chores?
What is it they say, "that ain’t the way I shimmy." Nope. It is going
to take a lot more than watching couple after couple after couple
pay vast amounts of money for little pasteboard closets to make me
want to fold some laundry. I have my standards, doncha know.
© Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
"The Girl Detective's
Theory of Everything"
September 3, 2007 Column
Bi-weekly |
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