It was Just a Little Leak!

It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t do it on purpose. I’ve known you since you were built. Don’t all those years of loyalty count for ‘something’? I’m not a BAAAAAD home owner. What about all those good times? Oh sure, you were just a summer weekend cottage in the country by a lake. It didn’t mean I loved you any less than the big house in the city. You were the last lot at the end of the dirt road. We loved that this location would mean less dirt dust coating your sides when the cars and motorcycles drove the area. Remember how we laughed hearing a cycle throttling down as it realized it had to stop and turn around before it even came close enough for a dust cloud to rise from its tires to affect you? Yep, yep, good times. And how about when we finally finished the interior decor? Putting up paneling to cover the hideous dull brown insulation sheeting? The exposed electrical outlets and wiring gone from view? Doesn’t that say ‘love’ to you? And not just cheap pressed fiber board! Only the best for you; genuine wood grain panels. EXPENSIVE genuine wood grain panels! You were then as you are now a labor of LOVE. Love, damn it!! Don’t tell me I didn’t…..oh, no! Please don’t! I didn’t mean to yell, I just, well….it hasn’t been easy being responsible for two houses. Don’t you know how many times I dreamt, wished, prayed even, to be here in your warm, gentle confines? I did everthing I could to break off from that other place. But I couldn’t just walk out and abandon it. The authorities would have hunted me down and I couldn’t lead them to you. My precious two bedroom, kitchen, living room, full bathroom with detached storage shed, single level, ranch style refuge from the world.

Remember how I always took care of the exterior? Having gorgeous, soft yellow, vinyl siding put on over your original dark green roofing shingle siding. And the dual pane insulated windows to replace those leaky, drafty windows with the ill-fitting storm window covers that never really kept the cold out. It was costly but did I ever complain? Did I ever make you feel beholding? That you ‘owed’ me?? Year after year; Spring, Summer and Fall, trimming your bushes, collecting fallen broken branches, cutting your grass and raking your leaves – round and round and round I go; where it stops, nobody knows. Never mind what I mean by that – SHUT UP! You just listen! You thought I wasn’t paying attention. That I wouldn’t notice. Letting yourself start to sag; that pooch belly under the bathroom window, you thought I didn’t see, HAAA! You were practically popping your siding off you fat, sloppy, no good…..NO, No you don’t!! You had it planned all along, don’t lie to me, when?? Why??

What did I ever do to make you turn on me like that?? Was it the money? Huh? Yeah, it’s always the money with you. Brand new roof but NOOOooooo! You just had to have it all, DIDN’T YOU!!?? A little leak, water in the wall, melting snow, so subtly as to almost be imperceptible. But you FAILED! I found you out. I popped off the siding, I discovered the rotting, crumbling, disintegrating old green siding falling off you like dandruff onto someone wearing black. You harlot, you slut, you exposed yourself to your core. Insulation gorged with the liquid from the leak you allowed to happen, laying in globs around your foundation, showing your lustrous, bare, wooden, 2×4 wall struts like the centerfold for “Carpenter’s Monthly”. Making yourself the cover girl for Lowe’s, Home Depot and gawd only knows how many others? TELL ME!! Just how many others are there? sob, sob……sniff! You couldn’t be satisfied just bleeding me a little to replace your cover, you had to go for the jugular and rip the pocket right off my………let’s just say I have to hold my wallet in my hand now, ‘Thank You Very Much’! Then you had to be gross, ugh! Disgustingly gross, turning yourself inside out.

Your walls exposed, insulation gone, foundation waterlogged and warping, the bath tub on the verge of falling out into the backyard. As one thing led to another I realized the full extent of your hatred for me. The walls had to be pulled, the lights moved, the wiring and complete house electrical system revamped and upgraded. New walls, floors, tiling, toilet, vanity, sink, walk-in whirlpool tub, lights, exhaust fan, mirrors, doors and assorted fixtures. Lastly, beneath the floor boards the final act of your insidious, putrid, betrayal to my devotion revealed. The SWAMP! How long? LAWDY, how long?? How much had I spent on every deoderizer to ever come from Madison Ave., the sprays, plug-ins, refills, on my knees scrubbing with gallons of pine scented this or amonniated that in a futile battle against the odor of ‘your’ swamp. There, for all to see, The split in the drain pipe attachment to the sink. Years and years of gallons and gallons of waste water spewing down the four inch extension from the sink down to the hard, cold ground under the bathroom. But for the lack of sunlight I’m sure you would have grown reeds and cattails with which I could have flogged myself. You would have liked that, wouldn’t you???
Now you are complete, renewed, resplendant as a jewel, THE jewel that is the ‘throne’ room. I but a shell of my former financial self. Reduced to telling my story in prayerful hope that some unseen, unknown people will read this and take pity on me. That they will pass this on to their friends and they to theirs and so on and so forth. All in the desire [the need] to win a hundred dollar prize. And it will be ‘mine’, ALL MINE!! Muwhahahahaaa….. I’ll keep it and put it in my wallet and you’ll never see it. DO YOU HEAR ME HOUSE??

This property can be seen by contacting his representative. Marty is now in a ‘home’ he doesn’t have to maintain in any way, shape or form. If you can’t give him your vote, please give your best wishes. Thank you.