The Wood Pile

“What did you do?” He knows something’s up. They’re not newlyweds.

“This is the ugliest house we’ve ever lived in and the longest we’ve ever lived anywhere,” they say often. That is true, too. It’s true for me, too.

“This house is the reason our credit is so bad,” they also say. “It’s a money pit. There’s so much work to do, we don’t want to do it anymore. The neighbors have their house, a mirror image of ours, on the market for $260K. We’re thinking of selling.

“We have friends with a rental six blocks away. The rent’s half our mortgage. We want to get out from under this mess. Our credit was golden when we bought this place.”

“On a whim,” Kristine says, “we talked to a realtor. She said we could make more than enough to pay off our debt and have plenty left over.”

“We asked her, ‘shouldn’t we finish fixing it up? We have plans to enclose the back porch, install a pedestal sink, and put in a spiral staircase.’

“She said, ‘No. Whoever wants this house would yank out whatever you do anyway. You’d get an investor at this price or someone who wants to fix it up the way they want it.

“You don’t have to tell me NOT to do anything,” Kristine told the realtor. “We’ve been not doing anything for years.”

That wasn’t even a week ago and the realtor’s coming over tomorrow morning to sign papers. If I had lots of money, I’d buy this place myself. Kevin did such a beautiful job on their bathroom; it’s the first place I visit. I had to have one last look.

“What did you do, Kristine?” Kevin says again.

“We have eight years of old electronics hiding in the attic,” Kristine says, “twelve dozen empty bottles for home-brewing that are just a mess. That stuff was stupid.”

“Was?”

“I decided to get rid of one thing every day. I put an ad on Craigslist saying, ‘Free wood, come and get it.’ Within ten minutes I had three trucks backing in here fighting over cut-offs from eight years of construction jobs. I had to look at that pile for eight years.”

“I had Brazilian cherry in there.”

“You had a toolbox filled with electrical stuff under there, too. I bet you didn’t know that was in under all that stuff.”

“I knew exactly where it was,” Kevin says. “I dug in there two years ago to get something out.”

“We don’t have a fireplace.”

“It’d be good campfire wood.”

“You haven’t gone camping in three years.”

“That Brazilian cherry would have lit up a beautiful blue flame. Did you get rid of that 6x6 old growth leaning against the wall?

“Mmm, yes.”

“Now you have a clean slate,” I tell Kevin. He’s gotten quiet. “You can start all over making a new pile.”

“That’s a way to look at it.”

“He’s just upset because I’ve gotten rid of all his stuff so far,” Kristine says. “His is the big stuff. I’m scared of the rental kitchen. It’s so small you can’t open the refrigerator door all the way. You can’t open the vegetable bins.”

“It’s okay,” Kevin says after a moment. “I saved the best stuff in the attic.”

“The attic’s next,” Kristine says.

I am so jealous.

A little help? [] 2:25:05 PM