Friday, April 18, 2008

Come to My Window...


We stared behind the bush.

Me: Is it...?
Rich: Yeah, but...

"But" said it all. We were staring at a window... A window, I might add, that only exists on the exterior of our home.

If I were C.S. Lewis, I might fashion wondrous tales of ogres, elves, white queens and lions, fighting an epic battle in the very insulation of my home, the only portal of which exists between the bricks of my humble Cape Cod. My nieces and nephews would grab a step ladder when Rich and I were engaged elsewhere, lift its sagging panes and climb through into the darkness to be greeted by a Pan named Dan in a tan van with a plan, man... Olivia, Henry, Devin and Ceili (and I suppose Nathan, Brenton, Gavin and Sam would come along for good measure... Or perhaps they would star in the sequel, "Return to Windowia") would all go on adventures that would teach them life lessons about good and evil, better and best, bad pans and good pans with no-stick surfaces...

The wood is a bit rotted, the paint peeling, and we're wondering if we should tear down the dry wall and open it to the inside. Of course, the giant fire bush that has blocked it's view for years, preventing our knowledge of its existence, hides most of the ugliness. In fact, if one were to be inside our home and staring at where this window should be, you'd be cooking on the stove... And if the window were open and you were cooking on the stove, you'd get to stare at the neighbor's deck...

Ah-ha! I think. Previous owner's avoidance tactics! Of course! Probably not, but it's nice to think that Kel and I aren't the only one's in the world who abhor small talk with general-area persons of non-interest...

I must also remember: this is the same house which has five light switches in seven slots at the top of our basement stairs, only two of which do anything noticeable...

The same house which, when we dug up and planted some flowers in the front, found three cinder blocks lined up in a row for no apparent reason whatsoever just a few inches under the soil...

The same house which, if you go into the attic, you can peer down between the walls all the way to the dirt under the foundation (with a flashlight...), has reverse-polarized outlets, water that pauses every five minutes for about ten seconds and dyes your whites a brilliant orange-ish iron color....

Yep, they certainly don't make 'em like this anymore...

3 comments:

DaBich said...

Sounds like a house fit for a mystery novel...

Anonymous said...

"this is the same house which has five light switches in seven slots at the top of our basement stairs, only two of which do anything noticeable."

Hey, stop that! Now I know why my garbage disposal turns on and off randomly! And why my bathroom lights turn on and off by themselves!

Sincerely, Your Neighbor

Kel said...

Are you suggesting that a previous owner filled in the window to avoid talking to his/her neighbor? That's brilliant! Of course even you and I wouldn't think of doing that to avoid small talk.

I have light switches to nowhere, too. I like to picture them shocking the people I don't like, in a Lost kind of way.

It was fun reading all of your posts while you were away. I didn't realize it's been so long since I was in the blog world.