My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places

Good House Hunting

Our poor realtor. She’s sent us listings for 16 weeks, and we haven’t found a place we want. The other day—true story—we saw a listing that said “yard, complete with outhouse.” Another included the phrase “classic midcentury tunnel entrance.”

Had the century in question been the 15th, and had the home come with a moat and the threat of enemy attack, I could see where the tunnel might be a selling point. But this was a 1952 house.

One listing bragged of “solid surface” countertops. Fabulous, I thought, because our last house had liquid countertops, and we had to hire skin divers to get to the spice rack.

We’re like that finicky Persian cat in the old Friskies ads that turned its nose up at everything its owner fed it. (It’s difficult to turn up a nose that is already so far turned up as to have penetrated the sinus cavities, but this cat managed it.)

Still, it’s been a learning experience. For instance, we have learned the origins of the term In-Law Apartment. This is a basement living area so low ceilinged and devoid of light you would never move your own parents in, but your wife’s parents would fit right in, alongside any enemy soldiers you’ve hauled from the moat and shackled to the walls.

Once we’ve whittled down the choices, the fun begins. For all of you who make a habit of looking in friends’ medicine cabinets when you’re over for dinner, the Open Home tour is not to be missed. Though the ensuing gossip is less titillating, as you don’t know whom it’s about. Psst, some people on 44th Street in Oakland use beard mascara.

Unfortunately, these days, most Open Homes have been cleared of the owner’s belongings and “staged” with generically tasteful Pottery Barn furniture and accessories. It’s as though there are whole neighborhoods populated by people who own nothing but brocade throw pillows and eat only colorful Italian dry goods, positioned with their labels facing forward. Often, the staging includes a breakfast tray of croissants and coffee lying on the bed, as though the homeowners had been abruptly chased out and left to wander the streets in their pajamas. Frequently, they’ve left so quickly that the fire is still burning. Ed will kneel down and inspect the fireplace. “We just missed them, Kemo Sabe,” he’ll say.

Last week, I caught Ed eating the staging. On a table out on the deck, a plate of strawberries had been placed alongside a chilled bottle of wine and two glasses. Ed believed they were treats set out to win us over, like the chocolate-chip cookies Realtors will bake just prior to your visit in an attempt to mask evil odors seeping up from the in-law quarters.

This afternoon, Ed has been threatening to visit the upstairs bathroom for reasons other than having a look. Ed’s GI tract is timed to go off about three hours after the second cup of Sunday morning coffee, i.e., during our afternoon house hunt. This means he routinely faces the existential torment of an endless array of pristine toilets, all of them off-limits.

Ed looks at our map. “Which place had the outhouse?”

Perhaps this is our problem. Perhaps we’re paying too much attention to the cookies and the pillows and the old people moaning in the cellar, and not enough to the actual house. However, I remain confident that one day, when neither of us is expecting it, we will walk into a house, look at each other and say, “This is it.” And our Realtor, like the exasperated Persian cat owner, will sigh with relief and collapse onto a tasteful arrangement of brocade pillows.