Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Broken Windows

I have two giant windows at the front of my house. The larger one is five feet tall and nine feet wide. Just one, giant, single pane. It basically covers the entire wall in my living room.


When the family who had the house built sat down with the architect 100 years ago, that conversation went like this:

Family: We want the front window to be Titanic size, but slightly less sinkable.

Architect: Too soon, guys.

Family: And we want the driveway to be 100 miles long and only two feet wide.

Architect: And what about the ceiling in the basement?

Family: We would like for an average-sized man to have to duck in some places.

Architect: And crawl spaces?

Family: Yes. Surround the entire house with subsurface crawl spaces and hide their entrances behind walls and mirrors so that they'll be excellent places for later owners to find the decomposed bodies of previously-unsolved mysteries.

Architect: And what should I do about the attic access?

Family: TINY. No human should be able to fit through it!

Architect: This is madness!

Family: Oh! And another thing! Put a mirror in the bathroom in a place that will allow The Perfects to watch us shower from the waist up!

Architect: But The Perfects don't even exist yet!

You get the idea.

Because the two windows at the front of the house are so large, no one in the last hundred years has been willing to bite the bullet on getting them upgraded. All of the other windows in the house have been replaced in recent years with something double-paned and fancy.

So when I bought the house, the two front windows were basically just Saran Wrap stretched to capacity.

Also, did you all know that's how you spell "Saran?" I don't think I've ever seen it written out before. Shout out to Google for knowing what I meant when I typed "Ceranwrap" into it.

Also also, you may have noticed that I recently gave up on feeling embarrassed about not knowing how to spell basic words. COME AT ME, WERLD!

The reason nobody has replaced the two front windows, I assume, is because they all had the same experience I had when getting a bid on replacing them: A man who looked like every white dad my parents invited over to barbecue with them in the 90s slid a folded piece of paper across the table with an infinity sign written on it.

The super old lady who owned the house for several decades (and was 95 years old the entire time if you ask any of my neighbors who have been around for a while) probably never cared to upgrade because she still churned her own butter and survived several wars and so paid no attention to the temperature of her home.

And then the guy who owned the house just before me bought it only so he could fix it up and sell it to an idiot for twice the amount he paid for it and he likely realized that upgrading those two windows was not going to be a good investment for him in that process.

But I plan to stick around for a while. I also hate that when I stand in front of the windows during the winter, I can actually feel a cold breeze coming off of them. And during the day time in the summer I put up caution tape to keep people from stepping in there because I'm not sure if my homeowner's insurance covers sauna-related injuries.

Also, the larger of the two windows had what I think may have been a bullet wound in the top right corner. It looked like someone shot it from the outside and the bullet went 97% of the way through the glass. And I was tired of Bob and Cathie using this as evidence that I moved into a bad neighborhood full of people who are going to "gang" me.

So I told barbecue dad that I would pay him the eleventy billion dollars he requested to replace these things.

Six weeks later, two men showed up with hammers and literally smashed my front windows to pieces.

Did you know that's how they replace windows? I don't know what I expected, exactly. But I definitely didn't expect to see something that looked fun.

I actually had a career crisis as I sat at my kitchen table typing up an email to someone about child abuse as I watched two grown men out of the corner of my eye breaking glass with hammers, smiling, and getting paid to do this.

Did you guys know there are people out there who sometimes smile when they're at work?

ISN'T THAT ILLEGAL?

I got off track.

The point is, I now have two new windows that don't look like they've been ganged, but my driveway is still two feet wide.

Oh, and still haven't looked in most of the crawl spaces.

~It Just Gets Stranger

31 comments:

  1. Just make sure to take good notes (even just mental ones) when the "ganging" happens so that you can accurately, and precisely, tell us how it goes down. I want to simultaneously say "spelling is overrated", but then also applaud you for caring enough to look words up on google. (Sometimes). And then, inexplicably, I want to end by saying "yay!" So I will. YAY!

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  2. My house has two huge picture windows, one in front and one in back. I am terrified of something happening to them because I don't currently possess eleventy billion dollars. I know my luck will run out someday so I plan to enter witness protection when that happens.

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    1. You can't choose the name Willow because I already called it!

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    2. Willow Uffgood? I've always thought I'd be a good Bavmorda...don't you? Of course, with my hair I'd probably be a better Finn Razelle, but she's too goody-goody for me. Dammit, now I have a conunderumminumm. And my day was pretty quiet up till now. Thanks a lot, Eli..erm...Willow!

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    3. That's it. I think everyone needs to call their Witness Protection Program names right now. Get yours before the good ones are taken.

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    4. Well Princess Regina Phalanges Banana Hammock is already taken so I'm out.

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    5. Agathina Gravinaud. Nice to meet you.

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    6. I recently learned the my 11th great grandmother was named Grizigon and went by Grizzel so yeah - that's what I'm choosing.

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    7. Nicole, hell to the yeah, those are both awesome names. Grizigon Grimworthy.

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    8. Albus Dumbledore, obviously.

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    9. Now we just have to find you all a Harry Potter themed community so you'll blend in.

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    10. I don't know if I can give up Amy Rose... if you google it, you'll see why. (Unless you are an avid gamer from the 80s in Japan and already know why?) but if I had to because my windows were blown out and there was nothing left for me BUT witness protection, I would have to choose Vera Butts. (Yes, thank you family history for that marvel of a name. And honest, I mean no disrespect to my ancestors).

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    11. Thankful T. B. Vivo

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    12. Leslie Wyatt will do just nicely for me. Knope is too negative for my optimistic perspective.

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    13. Felicity Smoak as long as I get her hacking abilities too

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    14. Amy Rose, wasn't there a movie about the exorcism of Amy Rose. Yep, I looked it up, came out in 2005. Also...my mother's name is Vera. It means Evil.

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  3. See, I hate paying astronomical fees for things I don't care that much about on my home, like replacing the carpet, having it painted, replacing the outdated windows, getting rid of the yucky vinyl flooring and replacing it with something better, etc...so I just don't do it. Then, so I don't feel ashamed about my house being shabby, I just don't invite anyone over. And because I don't invite anyone over the invitations to other people's homes dry up. And now I can be a happy hermit with no regrets who can spend that money on other stuff like flights to random places.

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    1. ...orrrrrrr...you could just tell everyone you're 'preserving' the style of the home, to honor the home gods and why do they dishonor their homes by ripping the guts out and putting new stuff in all the time?

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    2. Honoring the style of a 1997 poorly built row house in a run down PUD...I like it.

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  4. One of our windows got ganged while we were at work one day. Bullets wouldn't go through it so they used our own cinder block. How rude! There was a cinder block and half inch think and double panes glass all over the living room floor. We were forced to pay the insurance deductible so the insurance company would cover the rest of the eleventy billion AND A HALF dollars 90's BBQ dad "Stu" wanted to replace the double pane window sincectge neighbors complained about the cardboard and duct tape we could afford. Home ownership has a price.

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    1. Eli - you should have totally done the cinderblock thing so you would only have to pay your deductible!

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    2. Bridge, your entire comment is hilarious to read out loud.

      Also, thank you for confirming that window bidder guys are all 90s BBQ dads.

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  5. I smile at work every single time I read your blog.

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  6. Am I the only one wondering what a gang in this neighborhood would look like? I have serious questions. Do "the Perfects" run the gang? If so, do they teach everyone how to do perfect yard work? Do they do drive by "politings"? Do they get control of Tami? Answers! I need answers!

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  7. Why not add some spacers? Turn it into two or three windows?

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  8. Dibs on Jordana Barrett-Harrison. And my husband will be Daxton Sinclair, III.

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  9. I replaced all the windows on the back of my house...because sun. And, I financed them. I cannot even tell you how dissatisfying it is to write that check (yes, I mail paper using a sticker). And, that it will take me eleventy billion years to pay them off. We probably won't even live in houses anymore. Just community burrows.

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