by Kathy Brasby | Jul 28, 2015 | Stories
This ugly house had all sorts of surprises. The good ones included finding hardwood floors under the tattered carpet. The bad ones included finding the ceiling collapsed on the floor in the basement bathroom.
Ugly houses are often that way, with surprises at every turn.
Where the paint was chipped, we found pea green underneath. Who’d paint their living room that color? I mean all the walls, not just an accent wall.
As a contrast, the hallway was painted Pepto-Bismol pink.
Surprise!
You get the idea.
The dining room had a small storage door about four feet above the floor which I assumed was a coat closet. I know you’re ahead of me on this one so you already know it wasn’t a coat closet.
Inside was a small chamber with three stairs starting at the front and rising to the back, neatly wrapped in fresh carpet like a furry Christmas gift. No ribbon.
The problem was the stairs filled the compartment, ending at the top.
I’ve seen stairs that were steeper than climbing a 14,000’ mountain. I’ve seen stairs where the paint had long worn away by many trudging feet. I’ve seen stairs that wound around a pole from basement to loft.
But I had never before seen this: the stairway to nowhere.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 24, 2015 | Stories
We were looking for a church home. Our five-year-old son was looking for heaven.Which he found at the church we visited.
It had many children to play with plus a huge box of donuts sitting on a table, free for the taking. This was his definition of heaven.
When the service began, he joined us but, before the second song, he headed to the back. His father followed and found him in the bathroom, heaving his breakfast.
“Are you OK?” my husband asked.
He was. He washed his face, straightened his shoulders, and nodded.
“What happened? Are you sick?”
Our son shook his head. “No, I ate too many donuts.”
“How many did you eat?”
“Seven.”
His father laughed. “Wow.” And then he seized the parenting moment. “So did you learn anything from this little episode?”
“Yep,” he said. “Stop at six.”
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 21, 2015 | Stories
Buying an old house is a little like the first vacation after you get married: you’re not really sure what you’ll discover there.
But that hasn’t slowed my husband and me. I am referring to buying old houses. Our first vacation is so far behind us that we can actually laugh about all those expectations.
Because my husband is a construction genius, we like the ugly houses that we can either renovate and flip or remodel and rent out.
We bought the house on Beaver Avenue through an eviction/foreclosure. The contents of the house had been hauled out to the garage with the door left open. The idea was that people could rummage through the stuff and take what they wanted.
In the six months before the house was sold to us, nobody went through the stuff. Not only do we live in a small town, we live in a pretty honest small town.
That meant that the garage contents were ours. Yippee. If the previous tenants didn’t want them and the neighbors wouldn’t loot them, we knew we’d find some real treasures.
So we began the sorting process.
Would you believe we found a tattered wedding album and an x-ray among the treasures?
It was like an archeological dig but without the little brushes and tomb curses. As the slave labor (OK, they were our kids but that’s what they called themselves) dug their way through the pile, they picked up a scent.
“Maybe it’s a body,” said the boy. He was always good for a new explosion or creative bloodshed.
His sister wasn’t intimidated. “Hope it’s on your side,” she said.
They tossed aside more trash and dug deeper into the garage. The smell morphed into a definite stink.
When it crossed over from stink to stench, they bailed.
That’s what mothers are for, right?
So I donned mask and gloves for the final exploration. Some yo-yo (and I’m being really nice here) had pulled a frozen turkey out of the freezer at the eviction, wrapped it in a plastic bag, and left it in a trash can at the back of the garage. For six months.
Buying an old house isn’t a vacation after all. It might be about tomb curses, though.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 14, 2015 | Stories
I have a friend who claims to love doing laundry. She’s still my friend, which, I hope, reveals a ton about my tolerance level.
My children were all instructed in the operation of our washing machine so that, by the time they could climb, they could do their own laundry.
A result of teaching the kids to do their own laundry is that they now can use their bedroom dresser drawers for books and computer programs because those drawers never see clothes. They draw clean clothes from the laundry baskets.
At least that’s the theory. Sometimes clean and dirty co-mingle on the floor.
I did mention I’m tolerant, right?
I cannot blame my upbringing for this laundry tolerance. My mother was a Type-A laundrist. A laundrist is someone who takes the chore of laundry seriously. Even to the point of folding and stashing clothes on the same day they were washed.
I’ve resisted such nonsense.
One day my husband came home with a story about the wife of one of his customers who ironed all her husband’s underwear. It wasn’t a hint. My husband has no illusions about my laundry abilities.
I don’t even fold my own underwear. Why would I iron his?
But recently our washing machine went belly up and my husband decided he wanted a front-loading set, those new energy-efficient machines that should save water and electricity.
So we have a new set with portholes facing into our laundry room. My husband is bummed that the dryer doesn’t fold the clothes, but he’s adjusting. I’m bummed the clothes don’t come out on hangers. I’m adjusting, too.
But I do have one concern. Our grandson, at 18 months, now likes to stand at the glass windows and watch the clothes tumble.
And I’m worried that this might be planting the seeds of a whole new generation of laundrists.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 10, 2015 | Seasons
“I’ll wait outside.” Mabel settled on a bench outside the brick building, her arms pressing her purse to her bosom as tightly as the clasp on the patent leather bag.
“Mom, come on in with us for just a little while. When will you have a chance to do this again?” Her daughter’s voice softened her grip.
“I don’t know. I can just wait here for you.”
Mabel’s daughter laughed. “We’re in Las Vegas, Mom. We’ll never be here again. Let’s go into the casino for a little while. It’ll be fun.”
Mabel shifted positions and straightened her cotton dress. “I can wait here.”
But a few minutes later, Mabel found herself sitting at a metallic box with red and yellow panels and a long handle. “You just put your money in this slot,” her daughter said. “Pull down the handle and watch the fruit.”
“But I don’t gamble,” Mabel said.
“It’ll be fun.”
Mabel sighed and dug into her coin purse. Squeezing a nickel between her thumb and finger, she dropped the coin into the slot and gripped the red ball in her palm. She pulled the handle and images spun in a rainbow of colors before settling.
And then two nickels clattered onto the coin cup.
“You won!” Mabel’s daughter laughed. “Wasn’t that fun?”
Mabel nodded and reached for the coins. She rubbed each between her thumb and forefinger before popping open the coin purse. In slid the two nickels. “Pretty good return,” she said. “I’ll wait outside now.”
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