Friday, December 05, 2008

Santa Comes Early

From the warm, safe, spacious distance of the nearly completed house, I think it is safe to say we have wrung every last ounce of life and structural integrity from the trailer that first provided our family with shelter here at MisFit Farm. Maybe all things are relative, and from the luxurious accommodations we now inhabit, the conditions at the trailer seem a little more bleak. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that the conditions at the trailer were really THAT BAD, but I refused to acknowledge it at the time out of a sense of self-preservation, or at least the preservation of my self-dignity.

True, three of the five windows in the trailer were crammed with rolled insulation and permanently sealed with the weather-proofing shrink wrap.

True, the central air conditioning abandoned us last summer and was replaced by a window unit held in place mostly by boards propping it up from the outside, since the window frame didn’t seem up to the task.

True, water from an unknown source collected in the ductwork for the trailer’s ailing HVAC system.

True, the bottom of any cabinet under the two sinks in the house had been pulled out following leakage incidents from different occasions.

True, the aforementioned water leakage on one occasion (we were on vacation at the time) was extensive enough to completely buckle the kitchen floor thereby popping up the lovely parquet tiles.

True, the hot water heater would mysteriously trip the breaker on the unit, requiring me to dig into the back of the closet to re-set it, hopefully a few hours before actual hot water was needed.

True, I had to crawl under the trailer to augment its structure in a way that made leveling the washing machine possible.

True, the floor at the front door was growing a little spongy.

And we won’t even go into the aesthetics of the place.

So, one of the nagging concerns at the back of my mind has been, once the house is built, what to do with the trailer? I am prohibited from permanently keeping it by the zoning variance I received to build the home and by edict of any other person with any sense of taste. Its continued presence has created a nightmare for our loan officer as the underwriters wanted it gone BEFORE we closed on our note. I fault my loan officer for marking “Asian/Pacific Islander” as my ethnic background on our application. The novelty of marking the box overwhelmed his good sense, I guess. So when he was struggling with the underwriters about removal of the trailer, I pointed out that because of his “novel” response on my application they probably thought I was going to move my home village from the island into the trailer.

Truth be told, the underwriters had a good point. I really haven’t had any good ideas about how to dispose of the trailer. Given the lovely recitation from above, we had considered calling the Lecompton volunteer fire department and offering to let them use it for firefighting exercises, on the condition that they first let it burn to the ground.

In the meantime, every person who asked, “so, whatcha’ gonna’ do with that trailer?” received the same glib response, “Free to a good home. Whoever drags it off first, has to keep it.”

We arrived home yesterday to discover that someone had taken us up on the offer, or at least made a good start on it.
I seriously have no idea who is responsible for this. I have searched deep within myself for something – a sense of loss, of outrage, or of deep questioning. I am surprised, as a major control freak, however, all I find is a sense of wonder and relief.

Yes Virginia, MisFit Farm believes in Santa Clause.

2 comments:

Hey There! I'm Amanda! said...

I have a 1969 Handivan (complete with flat tires and Bob Marley bumper sticker)parked in the back yard of our first home, both of which we have not been able to sell. Perhaps you could work you magic there????

Misfit Farms said...

Ha - not so fast! Turns out, the trailer is STILL here, only now its guts and skirting have been strewn across our lawn, such as it is.