10:40 a.m. - 2002-06-06
Friends Don't Let Friends Buy Ugly Houses
"I'm going to kill you if you don't buy this house!"
Joey is giving me a pop-eyed, gargoylesque stare. One of the little A-frames down the street from them has come up for sale, and Joey and Beth immediately hopped in their car and drove over to implore us to buy it. That's right - they didn't just phone us up and say hey, we have a house for you - they Drove Over. They really, really want us to live on their street.
They also really, really want us to buy a Cute House, and this house, they inform us, is Really Cute.
"But that house is so tiny!" I wail. We've already been to peek at the house, in fact, we knew it was for sale before they did. "Besides, I want the Hickory Hill house!"
"No, you can't buy that house! It's ugly!" Joey is shaking his head. I look at Miss Beth. She wrinkles her nose.
"You can't buy that house, Ruthie! It's soooo ugly! I want ya'll to live in a CUTE HOUSE!!"
"But it could be cute! We'll make it really cute! Besides, it has great land!"
Joey and Beth have to agree - Hickory Hill does have great land. Really fabulous land. But the house has committed the cardinal sin of being as ugly as sin, and they can't seem to understand that we want space and sturdiness far more than we want a high cuteness quotient at this point. They just don't get it.
I have come to feel that buying a house is a lot like planning your wedding - everyone you know wants to tell you what you Really Should Do, because it's what they Really Would Do, if they were doing it. Miss Catherine doesn't want us to buy Hickory Hill, she wants us to buy her house because it's closer to UAH. My father wants us to buy the Bat House, because my father is the King of Fixer-Uppers. Joey and Beth want us to buy a cute house, especially a cute house near them, because they are so social they can't imagine not buying a house for sale near their closest friends. My mother is the only one who is in favor of Hickory Hill because it has tons of birds and she's a big birdwatcher.
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