Several TC diarists have wondered recently if our Muses are on vacation. Apparently mine wanted to prove she's earning her keep, so handed me tonight's topic as I sat in the waiting room of K1's Physical Therapist yesterday. Follow me below the orange cloud of inspiration after a word from our sponsor...
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The TV in the waiting room was tuned to HGTV instead of the usual news or whatever channel it is that shows Family Feud no matter what time our appointment is. So for 45 minutes I watched what turned out to be Buying and Selling. It features two brothers (neither of whom appear to be homophobic or racist, but admittedly my knowledge is limited) who help couples renovate-to-sell their current house, and buy another. One renovates, one realtorates.
With my iThing battery low, I reasoned it could have been worse - the TV could have been tuned to FOX - and watched Dan & Voula explain why their large house with expansive backyard was simply not large enough for themselves plus two tweenageish boys. Not enough storage, they claimed, even though I think their bedroom closet was bigger than Casa Brillig's. They want to sell it and move to a larger place, and are counting on selling this one for over $450K so that they can purchase one under their $650K limit.
Ohkayy, not in my price range, but I figure this is what makes for good TV, letting us live vicariously episode by episode in houses we will never be able to purchase. But as with all television of this genre, There Must Be Drama!! Cue Drama in two incarnations:
Renovate the kitchen & kids' bathroom or you won't get your desired price for this; and that oldie-but-goodie, We can't agree on a house to buy.
brillig repeats like a desperate mantra It's Better Than FOX
There's plenty of footage of Dan and Voula and whichever brother it was who does the Realty half of things looking at houses. Nice house nice price but OMG small yard! Big yard short commute dated countertops max price! House we don't learn anything about it because they won't go inside because the front porch has only one column and is "not balanced". Realty brother vows to find "more balanced house". Their list of things to complain about begin making me nauseous, given just about anyone I know would give up a firstborn to live in ANY of these houses. Heck, we'd live in the house they're trying to sell. It would be either a tradeup OR a first-time homeowner experience for most of us. I begin secretly hoping they never agree on a house, knowing that because it's airing on TV, I will not get my wish.
Meanwhile, Dan and Voula agree to do the necessary renovations and to save money by staying in the house during the 10 days it will take. Two scenes got to me:
1. As they prepared dinner on the grill that first night, Voula is complaining because the food's not ready yet and "everyone is starving". ZOMG, no kitchen! Must make do with grill and improvisation. Casa Brillig did this for a month or more back a decade ago when we renovated our kitchen. The fridge was in our living room, we had to wash dishes in the bathtub upstairs, and we ate a LOT of Stuff We Can Microwave.
2. During bathroom renovations, they agree the only place "safe" for the kids to sleep is down in the living room. Where their appliances are being stored during kitchen renovation. Dear Unjust God In Heaven, the Precious Offspring will have to... I can barely type it... sleep on the carpeted floor in a warm, dry house. After having had to live like animals who have no kitchen. Dan bitches about the unfairness of it all, says kids shouldn't "have to live like this" and says they're going to need to check into a hotel to survive. Precious Child #1 whines that this renovation is totally unfair and unreasonable.
You know what's unreasonable and unfair? Children that don't HAVE homes. Families who live in shelters, or in their cars, or move from relative to friend to car to fleabag hotel. Children who cry on snow days or vacations because it means they won't have a hot meal, or perhaps a meal at all. A friend on Facebook replied to my mini-rant there by saying "It would be refreshing for one of the shows to give airtime to a struggling single-parent who is working full time and then some; barely keeping food on the table, and have them make similar comments about how it is too onerous to deal with. I think viewership would drop considerably, huh? I really don't think the color of the cabinets would even come into the conversation."
K1's session was over so I never did find out whether Dan and Voula and the children survived. I hope they managed to sell their McMansion and purchase a jumbo-sized McMansion where Dan won't be so short of closet space he uses a spare bathroom for his clothes. I hope the kids did not wither away to nothing because dinner was not served promptly at 7pm on the good china.
And I hope that next time I'm in that waiting room, my iThing battery is fully charged so I can ignore the next batch of entitled, selfish jerks kvetching onscreen about trivialities that pale in comparison to what many Americans deal with every day.
FWIW, here's where I grew up:
That's a one story house with no 'real' attic, just a space you can haul stuff up thru with a ladder. Basement that had been finished until development changed the water flow and it started flooding. On that one floor of living space is a small galley kitchen that two people can't cook in at the same time, a dining room attached to said galley kitchen just big enough for the table and chairs, a living room decently sized but small enough the long cord on the phones of yesteryear reached anywhere in it, a den/guest room, two small bedrooms one of which was the "master bedroom" and a teeny room that was my sister's bedroom. And a bathroom, singular. Yes, 4 people including a teenaged girl had ONE bathroom and we all survived. I don't think Dan and Voula and kids could.
Come squish into the too-small living room and check out tonight's Tops!
Brillig's ObDisclaimer: The decision to publish each nomination lies with the evening's Diarist and/or Comment Formatter. My evenings at the helm, I try reeeeallllyy hard to publish everything without regard to content. I really do, even when I disagree personally with any given nomination. "TopCommentness" lies in the eyes of the nominator and of you, the reader - I leave the decision to you. I do not publish self-nominations (ie your own comments) and if I ruled the world, we'd all build community, supporting and uplifting instead of tearing our fellow Kossacks down.
From Ninepatch:
In Bob Johnson's diary Racist gun totin goofballs move on from Bundyville but new camp out plan likely to fail, westmorgan1 gives the greatest description of militia morans I've ever seen. Decidedly worthy of being printed out and tacked to the nearest bulletin board. Damnit Janet gets a really interesting thread started with a comment about stripping the Bundy militia of veterans benefits. It's the kind of discussion that represents the best of DK to me.
From Steveningen:
In lotac's Top Comments diary last night, Crashing Vor blew me away me with this beautifully written comment.
From lotac:
In Homophobes STILL Talking About The Thing They Don't Want "Shoved Down Their Throats" by jawillie, Vita Brevis has all the bases covered.
From LeighAnn:
In TeamSarah4Choice's diary OathKeepers: We Distributed Ammo To "Mentally Imbalanced" Bundy Thugs, Inland said this top comment.
From Yours Truly, brillig:
So many choices from chrislrob's late Wednesday evening diary Dear GOP: Don't Ever Send Black Republicans to Recruit Black People, but my pick is this nugget by awcomeon.
Top Mojo for yesterday, May 14th, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you
mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary
FAQing Top Mojo.
1) So, their denials to the FBI of targeting BLM by dagnome — 131
2) You are one heck of a teacher! by ZedMont — 117
3) My response is, fine, start jailing people by konving — 109
4) And people try to say that cat's are basically by MikePhoenix — 109
5) I didn't see Midday Open Thread and am glad it by Phoebe Loosinhouse — 98
6) Tour de force, LEFT! by 3goldens — 96
7) However those who do these things will by Throw The Bums Out — 94
8) Just another false flag operation by Obama by xxdr zombiexx — 89
9) Pound for pound a cat is not to be trifled with by Major Kong — 89
10) Thank you. by Damnit Janet — 87
11) This is worse than Kafka. It is BARBARIC. by flitedocnm — 86
12) i see the effects by art ah zen — 86
13) WJC shoved NAFTA through--he didn't merely sign by RFK Lives — 82
14) oh, come on by Karl Rover — 79
15) I don't believe in second chances in this case by jplanner — 76
16) Absolutely have to. by chrislrob — 71
17) What has happened to us as a society? by SouthernLiberalinMD — 70
18) yeah, by New Minas — 67
19) from your lips to the AG's by corvo — 64
20) Wrong by MarEng — 64
21) I Want To See Some Arrests by Homers24 — 62
22) You're keeping up with this very well. by GAKeynesian — 62
23) My son is 21 by Damnit Janet — 62
24) its not the diaries that unnerve me by mollyd — 62
25) nothing... by Vetwife — 62
26) People who are deaf get beaten or worse by jpmassar — 59
27) Exactly. by jpmassar — 59
28) As ugly and horrible as this story is, by karmsy — 58
29) the Defense Department already reached by Lenny Flank — 58
30) Exactly ... and your point is exactly why they by TeamSarah4Choice — 57
Top Pictures for yesterday, May 14th. Click any image to be taken to the full comment. Thank you
jotter for the image magic!