Homeowner Walk of Shame
Once I got out of college, I pretty much assumed that I'd be done with the Walk of Shame. You know the one: wander back to your dorm in the early morning hours wearing the clothes you left in last night, except now they're rumpled and stained, and you have indentations on your face from someone else's pillow, and inevitably some goody-goody who lives in the room next to yours is up and working on her thesis and chirpily asks you where you've been? [This is just a fer instance, feel free to add your own humiliating details to get in the psychic space.]
Right, so I thought all of that was done. No one told me that owning a house would set you up for reliving those precious college moments of deep and abiding semi-public humiliation. Because it's one thing for your neighbors to whisper behind your back that the paint is peeling off and the gutters need to be cleaned and the driveway needs to be re-paved and you don't take care of your yard (front or back) and check their children constantly to make sure that they haven't been consumed by the man-eating plants that propagate like Jurassic Park 15--Vegetal Revenge. I can mostly live with that.
It's another thing altogether when the painting crew, humming along to Bon Jovi's greatest hits, has to clear brush in order to get the job done. I was desperately trying to get out of the house this morning before they arrived, but since the head painter arrives (along with the Eagles) at 7, there's no way I'm out the door before then. So instead, I sheepishly slink out the front door and come face to face with the carpenter who has essentially downed the three feet of scrub maple in our side yard so that he can get to our rotting rafter tails. Later, I hear, he's going up on the roof to trim back the overgrown tree that is growing over our roof.
And then there's the fact that I haven't cleaned our windows since we moved in. Five years ago.
As I look back on it, dorm life wasn't really so bad. At least I wasn't responsible for the exterior of the room.
Right, so I thought all of that was done. No one told me that owning a house would set you up for reliving those precious college moments of deep and abiding semi-public humiliation. Because it's one thing for your neighbors to whisper behind your back that the paint is peeling off and the gutters need to be cleaned and the driveway needs to be re-paved and you don't take care of your yard (front or back) and check their children constantly to make sure that they haven't been consumed by the man-eating plants that propagate like Jurassic Park 15--Vegetal Revenge. I can mostly live with that.
It's another thing altogether when the painting crew, humming along to Bon Jovi's greatest hits, has to clear brush in order to get the job done. I was desperately trying to get out of the house this morning before they arrived, but since the head painter arrives (along with the Eagles) at 7, there's no way I'm out the door before then. So instead, I sheepishly slink out the front door and come face to face with the carpenter who has essentially downed the three feet of scrub maple in our side yard so that he can get to our rotting rafter tails. Later, I hear, he's going up on the roof to trim back the overgrown tree that is growing over our roof.
And then there's the fact that I haven't cleaned our windows since we moved in. Five years ago.
As I look back on it, dorm life wasn't really so bad. At least I wasn't responsible for the exterior of the room.
Labels: nesting
posted by kfluff at 10:12 AM
2 Comments:
Hee! Poor house. ;-)
On my one real Walk of Shame, I'm booking it back to my dorm room at like 7 or 8 on a Sunday morning on campus (so therefore NO ONE is about), and I run into my best friend in her car. She stops and I get in and she makes fun of me and then tells me to get out. I was like, wha--?? and she said, "Well, I'm going to meet my parents for breakfast - you're welcome to join us if you WANT - " and I was like WHERE'S THE DOOR??
When we did own a house, there was a kind of Walk of Shame associated with snow removal on our block - it's like there was a competition over who would clear their driveway soonest. Myself, I would have ended up completely shamed, but my poor husband completely succumbed to the peer pressure.
I think there's a gender component to the neighborhood peer pressure. I don't feel it for snow, but I do for the yard and the cleaning. Ugh. Perhaps if a friend's parents showed up to shame me? :)
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