You’ve seen the movies. The ones where the girl’s dating a new guy, and she takes him home to her family for one reason or another, and they end up… well…. you know. On her old bed. In her old room. Her old room that’s still adorned with her dolls, her New Kids on the Block posters, and all of the other memorabilia that’s associated with a girl’s journey from birth to college. I always wonder why those parents have kept her room for her. Why isn’t it a TV room or a gym yet? It just doesn’t seem realistic to me. Surely they couldn’t wait for her to move out so they could have the extra space, right?
When I was growing up, I lived in a room in the basement with fake wood paneling and a linoleum floor. I lived in it the exact way we found it when my parents bought the house. I added my own touch by taking acrylic paints and creating my own view of the sky, and I may have plastered my walls with license plates, pictures of my friends, and a large mural proclaiming my love for Scotty. My mom and step-dad often discussed what the room would become after I moved out. A storage room. A sewing room. A place to rent out when my eighteen-year-old brother and his psycho girlfriend couldn’t afford their apartment anymore.
Now my fourteen-year-old brother lives in that room with new carpet, nice furniture, and real walls. There isn’t a trace of evidence that it was ever my room. OK, that’s not entirely true. The cat still pees in the same corner it did when I lived there.
Even though my room doesn’t exist anymore, my mom maintained my presence in her home in less orthodox ways: my collection of acne medication still resides in the cabinet of the main bathroom. Most of it is over ten years old and caked with a bubbly, orange film, but it mustn’t me discarded because it is my legacy.
What’s become of your room at home?
There’s something about paying people to come to my house that creeps me out. I’m not talking about male escorts or strippers because I’m fine with I’ll never need those. I’m talking about the fridge delivery man, the garage door repairman, the spray-the-lawn-so-it-doesn’t-grow-dandelions man, and the install-the-digital-cable-so-I-can-have-TiVo man. Part of me is worried that they’ll come to my house and scope out my belongings so they can tell their burglar friends about all of the junk way cool stuff I have, like my mom’s old green couches and the red, shaggy rug I swiped from the thrift store for ten bucks (I got it half price because it smelled like pee the cashier thought I was hott). The other part of me just can’t handle the awkwardness of the situation. I mean, what am I supposed to do while someone comes to install a new spring in my garage door? Stand next to him and watch his every move so he doesn’t steal my sand paper or my beloved gallon of black paint? Throw on an apron and make him lemonade? Hide in my basement with a cell phone in my hand in case I need to call the police?
It is because of this that I have never had my carpets cleaned. In fact, because of this, I want to rip out every last thread of carpet in my entire house and replace it with hardwood flooring so I can sweep it and clean it myself (that, and I’m also paranoid of smells embedding in the carpet and breeding like rabbits). But alas, I am not so fortunate as to get my wishes. Sometimes I do the right thing and let logic overpower my wants. Kind of like this:
Well, this carpet is ugly, and I may have spilled paint on it in twenty-seven different places, but over all, it’s in decent shape. Perhaps I should put up with it for another year or two.
Sometimes I hate my Left Brain.
Since I’m stuck with my ugly carpet for a few more years, I borrowed my mom’s beastly shampooing machine so I can provide some type of cleanliness to the woven vomit that is my family room floor. My morning was spent filling and refilling water and soap tanks as The Beast proceeded to suck the mysterious filth from my carpet. After analyzing the dirty water, I wonder how carpet can even be deemed sanitary as it is nothing but a trap for dust, skin, flakes, and dog pee. If it were up to me, I would vote carpet among the untouchables: used Kleenex, dirty underwear, and Lindsay Lohan (Ba Dum Dum).
Remember when Michael Jordan retired from the NBA to become a Major League Baseball player? But things didn’t work out so he ‘unretired’ and then retired again?
This is kind of like that except not as… ahem… pathetic [Britt crosses fingers].
I’m Britt, and I just retired from my first blog, Weekday Wisdom. I bought a domain, and I left my old blog title and archives behind so I can start fresh. In taking on this new adventure, I hope to create a blog that any one of my neighbors, family members, or friends can stumble upon and not result in me covering my eyes and hoping they didn’t find that post, but mostly, I hope to share a few good laughs and make a few good friends!
Welcome, old readers and new, to Fluent Brittish!
