Ah, 306WD. What a shithole. When you first approach the house,
you think it's like any other house on the street, short of the trash in
the front yard and the beer bottles in the trees. But then you look real
close and see that it's not really brick, and the driveway is falling
(4' down) into the backyard, and there are gallon milk jugs half full
of rotting milk hidden under the rotting pile of pressboard, and
don't forget about the pink foam board that someone replaced a window with
and now the covering paint is starting to peel.
All in all, you are anything but
impressed before you ever enter the house.
|
|
Entering the front porch, the smell starts to hit you. The large pile
of boxes and packing peanuts that almost fills the entry way of the
small porch teeters and almost crushes you. You grab the doorknob
of the front door and, assuming the doorknob didn't fall off in your hand
again, enter. Now the smell hits you. What is it today? Garbage,
fish tank, the elusive stink from the heating system? No, today someone
left a big stinky turd in the toilet and since there is no exhaust fan
and all the windows are sealed shut, you have to wait until the carpeting
absorbs the smell. Wow, you're only 2 feet into the house and
you already have a story to tell your grandkids!
|
Pushing past the bikes and tires and boots and dirt and junk and fishtank and tools and boxes and even more bikes that are piled
up, you stumble into the front room. Now besides the fish tank
that has so much gunk growing on the walls that you can't see in it,
there's nothing in this room that can be called anything but a pile.
Strange, dark colored piles that have everything from packing materials
to beer bottles and boots in them. Nothing of interest unless you throw
your coat on one of the piles. Next, the main room. Dirty, yes. Cluttered?
Yes. Disgusting, no not really. There are all sorts of things
cluttered about the room, and the couches are more than worn and the
Sony Playstation is littered under pop cans and scrap paper, oh and
the torn up speakers that have been there for months. Despite this,
however, you notice a lack of fungus, growths, or sliminess. In
short, a lack of disgustiveness (unless you consider the Photoshop
doctored pictures of semi-nude women in compromising positions with
306WD members disgusting). This room is nothing a few dozen garbage
bags couldn't fix. Then you head into the kitchen.
You enter the kitchen and notice something just isn't right. There is
a huge stack of empty coke and beer cans waiting to be returned (estimated
value of the returnables is greater than the value of the house itself).
There are pots, pans and dishes everywhere. There is a blue discoloration
on the stove top. The garbage bag has spilled onto the floor, and the
sink! This is where you stop, you think I'm not going near that
French coffee press with 1/2 inch of mold floating on top of the
water. You're smart, you take one look at the sink, the coffee stains
all over the floor and the juice dripping down from the onions in
the pantry, decide not to open the refrigerator and leave the kitchen,
but not without getting a whif of the sausage grease that's been sitting
in a pan for a week and a half.
Running from the kitchen you accidently stumble into the back porch. Tripping
over another $60 worth of returnables, stacks of wood, bags of dirt and
an old oven you try to exit but no luck. Someone has strapped a broken
Throwing
your body weight against the door at the top you stumble into a bedroom.
You fear increased, your heart pounds, you think about escaping out
the window but notice the pile of rotting bananas on the roof just outside
the window and run through the other room's door into what appears to
be a combination sex room/auto parts store. Some odd canvas and metal
contraption hangs from the ceiling while everything from clutches
|
rusty propane grill to the back door (nice for winter grilling, not
so good in an emergency like this). You have three choices: live
in the back porch (preferred), return to the kitchen or take the mystery
door. You opt for the mystery door, hurdling a broken chair and a bag
of very old oranges and head up some narrow, dark stairs.
to car seats litter the floor. Sprinting out this room you skip the third
bedroom (ironically the cleanest room of the house) and head down the stairs
and back out the front door. If you're smart, you don't look back, but
the temptation is overpowering and you end up a pillar of salt. You never
even got to see the attic or basement or either of the bathrooms, but
you'd have to ask yourself, is that really a bad thing?