My wife and I have recently been house-sitting for my wife’s parents, which, in itself, is rather nice. My in-law’s house is clean and spacious, two things which my own house are mostly not, regrettably. Now, by no means is my own house cramped and filthy, but let’s just say that our two-bedroom cottage lacks the deep-cleaning that seems to be my mother-in-law’s specialty. Between my wife’s work schedule and my… utter and profound laziness, it’s hard to avoid seeing things pile up in my own living room, things that don’t go together but have found a way to co-exist in a tall stack, leaning ever-so precariously and dangerously, like a drunken, reeling person standing next to the exercise bike, just waiting to be accidentally brushed against so it has an excuse to topple over and look up at me from the floor, offended, saying,

“Why didn’t you clean me and put my component pieces away when you had the chance? Now you’ve gone and knocked me over and I’m a big mess. Oh, I see. Even though I’m laying here sprawled out across the floor now, you’re still not going to clean me, eh? Just going to sort of kick a path through me towards your computer chair, is that right? You’re really something, you know that?”

Yes, I will kick a path through you, former pile of junk, because you are absurd. You’re composed of a milk crate (?), a pair of Converse All-Star Knock-offs (one size too small), a book entitled “Beers of the World” (that I got from one of those big seedy book sales that I attend with Speedicut, that take place at the fairgrounds, the ones where you pay 5 dollars per grocery-sack-full of books), a six-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper with one can missing, a brand-new 32 oz. bottle of *shudder* “Original Flavor” Listerine mouthwash, a cracked vase with a painting of Lao-Tzu’s upon it, a fleece blanket with Johnny “I’m-So-Bloody-Handsome-And-I-Know-It” Depp’s smug little mug upon it (I take care to kick that particular item across the room with gusto.), and a yellow writing pad where the first page is a short list, titled (entitled?), “Books That I Would Like To Read, But Will Probably Never Get Written, And So I Should Just Write Them Myself, Because, After All, I Should Be Doing Something With This Whole Writing Business, Why Not”.*

This above mentioned list with the long name is comprised of these three items:

1) A book on the French Foreign Legion because it’s really a fascinating story of how an army consisting of French rabble, thieves, drunks, and hooligans became, with time, one of the most distinguished fighting forces on the planet. (Yes, I know there are a few books out there called “My Life in The French Foreign Legion“, but I don’t think anyone has really given a good account of how it evolved over time from what it was to what is now. It’s fascinating and my book would be, too.)

2) A sort-of detective noir that occurs in space.

3) A book about the Mercury 13, the famous female astronauts program that no one knows anything about, but should. (Yes, there’s is, alas, also already a book out there called “The Mercury 13“, but mine would be witty and gripping. Actually, that’s a bit unfair, as I haven’t even read the book I’m bashing in a sort of roundabout, passive-aggressive way.)

So it’s rather nice being in a house that is thoroughly dusted, thoroughly scrubbed and uncompromisingly free of grime, free of uppity stacks of accumulated junk, free of my scribbled notes, free of… well, free of all the things that make my little cottage wonderful really. And I can’t wait to get back there.

If I were there right now, I’d probably crack open a Diet Dr. Pepper, prop my feet up on the milk crate, toss out those uncomfortable mock-All-Stars once and for all, and get working on that Foreign Legion book. Or, at the very least, I might add a few more items onto that woefully short list.

* I enjoy making my list titles as descriptive as possible: otherwise I come across a list folded up in my pocket with a vague, or, more likely, no title at all. The last such cryptic list I encountered was written on yellow paper, probably from this same writing pad, and was folded up in the pocket of a t-shirt, and it bore no title at all, but the list consisted of six items.

1) The shiny pink spot on my right hand’s ring finger. (I used to get this spot on said finger when I’d write with a pencil for long periods of time. It’s been gone for years now, though, since I mostly use a computer.)

2) My grandfather once advised me, after a brief spat in front of me with my grandmother, to “marry a mute”.

3) Whittling. (I once nearly lost my right index finger whilst whittling a point onto a stick while camping in a quite ironic way. I was whittling and my grandfather called out something to me from the camper and I looked in his direction and sliced right into my finger, deep and in the knuckle. The funny thing was what my grandfather had called out to me that had so distracted me, which was “You be careful while you’re out there whittling, Chris, or you’ll lose a finger!” Yeah, I know, spooky.)

(On a side-note:I just had a malfunction in my brain while trying to think of the name of the index finger, and so I just looked it up on the Google and it told me that the index finger, when talking about hand analysis, is also called the “Jupiter Finger”, which I think is just neat.)

4) The feasibility of owning a ferret. (I really do want a ferret.)

5) That Tom and Jerry cartoon where they show, at the gates of heaven (cat heaven, I guess), a bag of sopping wet kittens, and St. Peter (played by a cat) looks down at them and says “Oh, what some people won’t do… tsk, tsk.”. (What the bloody…?! In a kid’s cartoon?!)

6) Bob Hoskins, the actor. (Well, obviously.)

Now, usually I would just think to myself, “What an odd little list. I wonder if I should Google these things?” or, more frequently “Hmm. I wonder if I have amnesia and I left myself this list of clues in order to help myself solve my wife’s murder, and I’ll eventually discover that I am, in fact, the murderer?” but then my wife will walk into the room and that’ll be ruled out, and so I’ll just toss the piece of paper out (on the floor, more likely), but since I’ve started blogging I’ve been writing lists like these whenever I want to remember something that I might want to write about at some point.

So, err… mission accomplished, I guess!