Our House is a Very, Very, Very Crooked House

08/13/2009

My father had a name for the house I grew up in. He called it The Dog’s Breakfast.

I guess that was flattering compared with The Pimple—his name for the house we almost bought instead. The Pimple was, as my father described one of my boyfriends, "a long tall slab of misery." Picture the teetering shack of Aunts Spiker and Sponge from "James and the Giant Peach."

So we went with The Dog’s Breakfast, which was plunked down in something of a holler, this being West Virginia. I suspect my parents chose it because the back yard was flat-ish. No chance of me and my sister sledding, smack, into a monster truck, or, as teenagers, forgetting the handbrake and letting her roll. My parents thought ahead.

Not to keep you in suspense, though. The Dog's Breakfast was so named because it wasn’t exactly what you would call…..symmetrical. It was a hodgepodge of five levels, each one slightly askew and with no more than two rooms. You'd no sooner descended one slippery, carpeted set of steps than you found yourself going down another, often on your butt.

Each room was decorated in a ghastly color scheme. The living room, for example, sported a flame orange shag carpet and strawberry pink walls. The kitchen was painted that ’70s smooshed-peas color (chartreuse?) with mustard-yellow trim.

And, well, a lot of stuff didn’t really work. Like the air conditioning. If you wanted to cool down, you had to sit on one of the vents, which was usually occupied by a cat. My parents, on the slanting top level, had it worst.  It was like Manila up there in the summer. They had two attic fans wedged between facing windows, but still.

I suspect they put up with this funhouse warren because at least it meant the pets could be on one level,  the kids on another, and them on their own (I have kids now, so I get this). And like I said, they thought ahead.

But I remember things getting a bit…tense…one winter evening. I was doing homework in the Mary Kay-themed living room while my dad made bird-watching plans by phone in the adjoining kitchen.

"Uh, listen Larry, don’t mean to cut you off," I remember him saying all of a sudden. "But could I call you back? There appears to be a torrent of water gushing out of my dining-room lamp."

I looked up from my algebra and, sure enough, there was a waterfall plunging from the shade over the dinner table.

It wasn’t something you see every day, but I wasn’t super surprised. A frozen pipe must have burst again, I figured. A different room in The Dog’s Breakfast had flooded just about every winter. And my dad caught this one early, so we wouldn’t need to dredge four feet of freezing water with mixing bowls this time.

But, post-lamp incident, my father’s patience with the house was wearing thin. We knew The Dog's Breakfast's days were numbered when a note appeared over the laundry-room sink. It went something like this:

How to Keep the Lousy Pipes from Bursting if Bloody Husband is Not Bloody Here

1. If temperature drops below 32 degrees, keep thermostat at 65 degrees or higher.
2. Close faucet to cut water supply to upstairs bathroom.
3. Locate and pull plug on ceiling pipe above sink.
4. Drain water from ceiling pipe into sink.
5. Replace plug.
6. Move into a new bloody house that isn’t falling down around our bloody ears and has properly insulated pipes. Bloody.

My family is from South Africa, so my father says bloody a lot. Coming from him, a note like this is not unusual. This is, after all, the man who taped the label “For Husband Only” to the dog’s leash.

In case you’re wondering where I’m going with all this, here’s the thing: I now get my dad’s frustration. I have officially reached the same pinnacle of impatience with our own house. Aside from the major differences—it’s plopped in a hood in Washington, DC, as opposed to a holler in West Virginia, it’s quarter the size, and has no carpeting whatsoever—it has some eerie similarities.

For one thing, the air conditioning is useless, except for between 4 and 5 a.m.; we’d be toast without our 10-plus fans. The stairs are also treacherous (definitely something you want when you have three-year-old boys). The house, due to lopsided sinking, is also completely crooked: if you drop a marble in the only bathroom, which doubles as a walk-in closet, it barrels downhill to the front bedroom. And yes, believe it or not, water also cascades from our ceiling when the temperature drops below zero.

The house has some other special “quirks”:

 

• Every window and door has bars on it. This means that if you accidentally auto-lock the door behind you but forget the barred-gate key, you are totally screwed. You’ll be standing in the vestibule getting chewed by mosquitoes, indefinitely awaiting rescue by the cops or your husband.

• We have no dinner table, not even a kitchen table. When we have guests over, they wander around aimlessly with their plates, looking confused, until we explain that our coffee table is our kitchen table, and the sofa pillows are our chairs. (The kids have their own table and chairs, though.)

• Nothing in the yard survives, not even the rats. Well that’s not strictly true. The ghetto palm thrives, no matter how many times I pull it up. But the rats living under the deck are getting annihilated by our dog. We keep tripping over…her handiwork… when we take the garbage out.

 

Given all this, The Dog’s Breakfast sounds more than appealing right now. Big, flower-filled, dead-rat-free yard for the kids.  Kitchen and dining-room table. And best of all, no bars on the doors or windows—a key factor for kids, who, as they get older will be hell-bent on sneaking out of the house. Not that I’d know anything about that. But, like my parents, I’m thinking ahead.

I haven’t seen any desperate notes pinned to the wall yet. But I’m expecting to see one any day. Maybe from my husband. Maybe from one of the kids. Maybe even from my father. The only trouble is, after reading this, I’m not sure anyone will want to buy the place.

Comments

[Jen Orr]

Woke up my cat laughing at this one...I have such fond memories of your insane house. Of course, while technically less crooked, ours was no less insane.

[Marcie]

oh, i love reading your stories!!!

[Betty]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Betty

http://dogfurniture.info

[Cyberchondriacmom]

My mom's comment about The Dog's Breakfast is that really we should have just knocked the house down and started all over again. Plus she was horrified that the guy who bought it (which, BTW, was because of my dad's exotic plants, nothing to do with the house) had not let his wife see it first.

[colleen]

Nice job, Bridget, describing a unique but very "homey" house. I think you may have forgotten that your father also referred to it as an "architect's nightmare" and "the maze" (it was rather confusing) from time to time. But that's the way he is. I think he kinda liked it despite all its problems. And of course he totally enjoyed the garden!

[M.C.]

What a great story! When I read the words "The Dog's Breakfast," I thought: definitely not American. Then at the hilarious "bloody" note, I *knew* there were some non-WV influences at work! And yet, there you all were, in WV, in a crooked house. No wonder you became a writer.

[M.C.]

Oh, and so much love for "a long tall slab of misery."

[topaz]

Hilarious! These older houses (often with weird additions tacked onto them) may have a certain charm, but upkeep and ronovation can kill the budget, and when it's time to move on it's time to move on... Good luck with house hunting and finding a dream house (with air conditioning!) that doesn't resemble the Dog's Breakfast at all! But don't invite your father to stay or he'll probably think up some equally derogatory nickname for it!

[dad]

Bridget, I've often thought your life must be quite tough juggling several jobs and raising twin boys - but I never realized how much tougher it must have been growing up with a father like yours. It's a miracle you survived!! (P.S. I don't remember the Long Tall Slab of Misery too well, but I clearly remember the Manatee!)

[megs]

just about wet my pants
Having grown up in this house (dog's brk)with you, I can't believe how much you remember.....the instructions in the laundry rm. were pretty close...remeber the similar ones about starting the lawnmower and the pilot light??? All ended with bloody.....or get a new one. You should write about the Mobile Slum or the fantatic red-brick immigrant appts near the prt line when dad came home one night and told us we were gettig a Rabbit and we got thriled about getting a bunny for a pet, not a WV.

[Cyberchondriacmom]

Right, right. Who could forget The Mobile Slum: Father's name for that poor little Toyota Tercel that we used to practice crashing into stuff (including The Dog's Breakfast)and to serve as a trashcan for McDonald's wrappers, half-read Seventeen magazines, and school memos to our parents.