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Doll Crack House
Aug. 11th, 2004 02:36 pmWhen I was a kid, and my parents were still married, my dad would be building crap all the time. The garage was filled with his tools, his workbench, the car (pre-railroad table/track/whathaveyou- after that the car no longer fit in the garage) and other crap he collected over time.
The kind of stuff he built wasn't the sentimental "oh, i'm making this for you out of the kindness of my heart cause I want to do something nice for you".
It was the "I'm cheap, I don't want to buy you item A, but I will construct in my own crazy half-assed way something that resembles item A, yet is not item A, and will likely have some horrible flaw in it that will make it a pain in the ass to keep for years to come and don't think you can throw it away because I will guilt you forever even beyond the grave if you do, so there." kind of stuff.
This from a man who was pulling in a disgusting amount of cash from IBM as a engineer in the 80's, who would insist that my mother make clothing for us instead of buying clothing (because she was a stay-at-home mom even though she didn't *want* to be, yet he would get us bizarre 'gifts' during the holiday season (i.e.: the microscope/science kit one Christmas, the swiss army knife year, etc. etc.).
Anyways, i'm getting ahead of myself, again.
At one point in time, when I was a very little girl, and I had an interest in dolls, I asked my parents if they could get me a dollhouse. My mom, in her infinite wisdom, got me a second-hand dollhouse from my older cousin who wasn't using it anymore. Unbeknownst to her, Dad had other plans.
What ended up happening, was that dear old Dad went out and bought some plans for an 'American farmhouse' dollhouse. A giant farmhouse dollhouse that would eventually fill up a good chunk of my childhood room, a space on our grandparent's back porch & later the living room of their house, and finally a spot in my mom's backyard porch with two plastic shower curtains wrapped around it (ala a mini Cristo) to protect it from the elements.
It is a giant ungainly dollhouse, on wheels.
He built this house, painted the exterior, ran wiring through it, and then left it incomplete. He thought this was ok for a little girl to play with. He didn't even finish the walls or the staircase- it was just raw plywood on the inside walls, and a hole for where the staircase would go. All the trimmings that were to go into the house to complete it (lights, a staircase, furniture, etc.) were jammed up in the dollhouse attic space. Whatever didn't fit in the attic space was left lying around in the garage, and then later my mom moved these items into the linen closet.
I was not allowed to put wallpaper on the walls in the dollhouse, make the furniture, put in any of the other stuff because, in his words "You'll screw it up!" yet he did nothing to the damn house. When I finally got the nerve to stick some wallpaper scraps up in the inside of the house in an attempt to make it look more like a dollhouse, I was yelled at.
Needless to say, I didn't do much with the dollhouse after that. About the only thing it did was collect dust, and (for a brief period in time) house a dish containing water and a number of tadpoles I had collected.
They died.
So, the house has moved from location to location since the divorce. When I moved out, my mother was pleading with me to take it with me, or do something with it. Then she started seeing something she described as a large, weird looking rat in the backyard.
Apparently, the dollhouse (during this time period) was 'occupied'.
By an opossum.
It moved in, breaking the front windows in order to gain access to the inside of the structure, and apparently began building a nest inside. When my mom (who, after we told her it was most likely an opossum) went to check the inside of the house. Ray was with her when she opened the house, and he described the scene inside to me this way:
"It was like a miniature hobo moved in and trashed the place"*
Unfortunately, no pictures were taken of the inside before it was cleaned, so I can't really say if this was the case. However, I’ve seen the current state of the dollhouse now, and even without the crap inside, it really does look like a miniature crack house.
I wonder if they will let me list it as that on EBay.
Or if anyone will buy it.
*Probably not verbatim, but close
The kind of stuff he built wasn't the sentimental "oh, i'm making this for you out of the kindness of my heart cause I want to do something nice for you".
It was the "I'm cheap, I don't want to buy you item A, but I will construct in my own crazy half-assed way something that resembles item A, yet is not item A, and will likely have some horrible flaw in it that will make it a pain in the ass to keep for years to come and don't think you can throw it away because I will guilt you forever even beyond the grave if you do, so there." kind of stuff.
This from a man who was pulling in a disgusting amount of cash from IBM as a engineer in the 80's, who would insist that my mother make clothing for us instead of buying clothing (because she was a stay-at-home mom even though she didn't *want* to be, yet he would get us bizarre 'gifts' during the holiday season (i.e.: the microscope/science kit one Christmas, the swiss army knife year, etc. etc.).
Anyways, i'm getting ahead of myself, again.
At one point in time, when I was a very little girl, and I had an interest in dolls, I asked my parents if they could get me a dollhouse. My mom, in her infinite wisdom, got me a second-hand dollhouse from my older cousin who wasn't using it anymore. Unbeknownst to her, Dad had other plans.
What ended up happening, was that dear old Dad went out and bought some plans for an 'American farmhouse' dollhouse. A giant farmhouse dollhouse that would eventually fill up a good chunk of my childhood room, a space on our grandparent's back porch & later the living room of their house, and finally a spot in my mom's backyard porch with two plastic shower curtains wrapped around it (ala a mini Cristo) to protect it from the elements.
It is a giant ungainly dollhouse, on wheels.
He built this house, painted the exterior, ran wiring through it, and then left it incomplete. He thought this was ok for a little girl to play with. He didn't even finish the walls or the staircase- it was just raw plywood on the inside walls, and a hole for where the staircase would go. All the trimmings that were to go into the house to complete it (lights, a staircase, furniture, etc.) were jammed up in the dollhouse attic space. Whatever didn't fit in the attic space was left lying around in the garage, and then later my mom moved these items into the linen closet.
I was not allowed to put wallpaper on the walls in the dollhouse, make the furniture, put in any of the other stuff because, in his words "You'll screw it up!" yet he did nothing to the damn house. When I finally got the nerve to stick some wallpaper scraps up in the inside of the house in an attempt to make it look more like a dollhouse, I was yelled at.
Needless to say, I didn't do much with the dollhouse after that. About the only thing it did was collect dust, and (for a brief period in time) house a dish containing water and a number of tadpoles I had collected.
They died.
So, the house has moved from location to location since the divorce. When I moved out, my mother was pleading with me to take it with me, or do something with it. Then she started seeing something she described as a large, weird looking rat in the backyard.
Apparently, the dollhouse (during this time period) was 'occupied'.
By an opossum.
It moved in, breaking the front windows in order to gain access to the inside of the structure, and apparently began building a nest inside. When my mom (who, after we told her it was most likely an opossum) went to check the inside of the house. Ray was with her when she opened the house, and he described the scene inside to me this way:
"It was like a miniature hobo moved in and trashed the place"*
Unfortunately, no pictures were taken of the inside before it was cleaned, so I can't really say if this was the case. However, I’ve seen the current state of the dollhouse now, and even without the crap inside, it really does look like a miniature crack house.
I wonder if they will let me list it as that on EBay.
Or if anyone will buy it.
*Probably not verbatim, but close
