Sharon's house swap surprise

 

Sharon paid me a visit last night. She was in rare form, walking again, and up to some new tricks. Boy, was she ever. I'm still trying to figure out how she did it, and what she did, exactly, but here's what I remember:

I came home from work, from outside, whatever I was doing, took off my muddy boots and was looking for a place to put them. This was my first clue that something was off. The house was all different. The tile floor had been replaced with carpet. I set the boots down in the kitchen, or what looked like it should be the kitchen, although it was devoid of appliances. Again, no tile floor, but a cheap linoleum replacement. 

I went into Sharon's room, and it dawned on me that this was also new. We never had separate rooms, and this was an addition, magically inserted between the kitchen and the guest bathroom, or where the guest bathroom used to be. Again, new carpet and no furniture--and no Sharon. 

This was starting to alarm me. I finally found her and noticed right away that she was up and walking around. As usual, this surprised me, and I would have been delighted, were it not for the questions I had about the house.

She was wearing an atrocious 70s pants suit with an oversize yellow and brown plaid motif and flared pants. It looked as if Dolly Parton had her clothes designed by the mom on the Brady Bunch. The fact that she was walking was the only thing kept my reaction to the outfit in check.

"Honey," I said. "You are walking. Would you care to explain that?"

"It's good that I'm walking, right?" she said.

"Yes, of course," I said. "But how? What happened? And what is going on with the house?"

"It's all tied together," she said. "Here, I have some things to show you."

My heart was aflutter with mixed emotions as we walked out of our house and boarded a small ancient RV, also of 70s vintage, long and narrow, with a streamlined fiberglass design that made it look like a hotdog. I made the sarcastic comment that if it were mine, I would paint the Weinershnitzel logo on the side. I was getting nervous, and I kept asking her what the plan was, but she remained tight lipped about it. 

Inside the motorhome was a crew of people from work: Sal, Jameson, Houa, Luis and David, to name a few. The were all geared up for some kind of work project. I asked a few of them if they knew where we were going, but no one was giving me any answers. I noticed that a lot of our household items, mainly furniture and Sharon's stuff, were packed inside of the RV with us, and this made me even more nervous.

The bus departed with Sharon at the wheel. She navigated this Hindenburg of a beast through some ridiculously small gates, between  buildings and fences, making improbably sharp turns, all the while managing not to scrape the sides or get us stuck.

We arrived at our destination, which at first glance appeared to be a ranchette. We were greeted by a lady who was tending to her animals, a menagerie of chickens, goats and pigs, with a Panda bear thrown in the mix for diversity. The bear growled and bared his teeth at me, and I recoiled a bit. Apparently, he wasn't the cuddly type.

"Oh, yes," the lady said. "There's a bear. He's a Panda, but he's still a bear, you know. People forget that." I assured her I wasn't about to forget.  

The lady seemed to be gathering her things as she talked with a real estate agent wearing the familiar Century 21 gold jacket. They were negotiating some kind of deal, while unbeknownst to me all of our possessions were being offloaded from the RV. Things were starting to firm up in my mind, but I was still confused. 

"Sharon, you must tell me. What have you done?" I begged her to come clean.

"We needed a change," she said. "I needed a change. It's doing me good, don't you see? I told you it's all connected."

"Yes," I said. There was no denying that. "But how could you do this without asking me?" I was really upset by this extreme unilateral move and the fact that I had no control over this important decision. We went inside the house, and I saw Hannelore and Bob in the kitchen.  

"Hannelore!" I cried. "Finally, someone who can tell me what's going on."

"I don't know any more than you do," she told me, shaking her head. "I don't like it much, though. Look at this place." 

Bob agreed with her and said, "I've looked over the contract, and it looks pretty iron clad. I don't think you are going to be able to get out of it."

I figured I'd better look around at my new digs, and I did a quick walkthrough. It was definitely a fixer-upper. The walls were cheap wood paneling, probably faux walnut at one time, painted over with a glossy off-white/beige. The living room was long and narrow, in the style of an old single wide mobile home. At one end was an addition, another single wide unit, laid out perpendicular to the first, forming a T-shaped configuration.

"Wait a minute," I said abruptly. "Where's my music room?"

Sharon looked startled. "I didn't think of that," she admitted.

"You know what, never mind. I'll set up in the living room," I said feeling my own rebellious spirit start to take hold. "But wait--where's all my stuff?

Another oversight, I guess, as she had no answer for that either. I was going to have to go back and arrange for transport of all my music gear myself. 

I looked around at one of the rooms in the T-wing and decided that it might be suitable for my man cave, although I'd have to do a lot of rearranging and downsizing. The couch would have to go, but I didn't mind that so much, since it was the only thing I owned that was even uglier than this place.

And I didn't know where I was going to put the big screen TV on, since the main wall was taken up with ugly cabinetry, more painted over paneling with cheap latches and hinges, also hastily painted over. The floor was a strange bamboo cork type of material, kind of spongy and unfinished, with gaps between the unevenly spaced 12 inch tiles.

This interior was making me depressed, so I decided go outside and do a walkaround of the entire property starting with the exterior of the house: shabby, buckling siding with rot on the bottom, not even siding actually, but more of that goddamn painted paneling. It was looking more and more like Tijuana construction, not even standard mobile home quality. 

I pointed these things out to Sharon, who still seemed to think the house swap was worthwhile. She seemed a little concerned, however, when I showed her around the perimeter of the property. We were far too close to the neighbors, close to town, close to...a freeway? What the fuck had she been thinking?

"I was watching one of those TV ads," she admitted. "They didn't go into the details, but it looked pretty good in the commercial."

I was still reeling from the idea of her walking around, so I supposed that if this was the price, then this would have to be my new life. I was trying to reconcile this in my mind, thinking of how I could perhaps renegotiate her contract with the devil's real estate agent to get our house back, but instead, I woke up, thankful that I was at least still in my own home.