A Morsel For Your Patience...

I shall post the follow-up pictures from Day Two of my excape to paradise presently. You see, I was forced into menial labor by the slave driv... er... wife, all weekend, and therefore had no time to upload my exquisite photos OR to compose a pithy summary of the day's events.

Of course, I jest. All day Saturday was spent house-shopping, as our current domicile no longer fits our needs, both geographical and functional. It's a perfectly fine home, to be sure, but the lady's new job demands a commute from Central Jersey that is taxing on the soul and just plain exhausting. So we looked at houses all day in Southeastern PA. That was exciting. I'd never done something like that before, and sheesh... let me tell you, I am shocked and amazed how ... wrong it feels. Walking into these houses felt almost voyeuristic. Virtually none of the homes we saw were cleaned up and prepared for house shoppers to snoop around. As such, we could tell so much about each family just from all the junk they still had laying around. My favorite house, by far (and I wish ever so badly I'd brought my trusty digi-cam, cuz you guys seriously have to see this place to believe it) was a place viretually on the highway. The first indication that the inhabitants were ... interesting ... people was the pimped out Pontiac in the driveway. The thing had a hydraulic foil on the trunk, dual coffee-can sized exhausts that pointed upward at an angle and (here's the coup de grace) a jesus fish decal. The juxtaposition instantly put a hurtin' on my fragile little brain.

So with that experience as a hint of what was to come, we entered the house. The lower floor, where we entered, was nothing special, except for the enormous TV and goose-turn green shag carpet. So we went upstairs. That's when the enormity of this place and its contradictions hit me like a ton of bricks. I immediately saw a framed Thomas Kinkade painting hung on the most prominent wall of the room with track museum lighting illuminating it from above. Now, to understand my reaction to this abomination, you have to understand where Kincade and his army of mutant Orcs resides on my hierarchy of evil in this world. It's somewhere between violent crime and the room full of genetic "experiments" that Ripley entered in Alien Resurrection. That's the kind of revulsion I feel any time I see anything resembling a Kinkade-like touch. And here I am, face to face with a museum-fied and gaudily framed paean to the embodiment of all that is Bad Taste. I think I may have puked in my mouth a little bit right then. And I certainly wastn't prepared for the horror that awaited me.

I turned the corner into a very nice kitched fitted out with a huge granite countertop and ridiculously expensive-looking Corian sink. It was beautiful. And above it hung two prized -- and obviously proudly virgin -- Cracker Barrel Commemorative Cast Iron Skillets. Ohhhhh Kaaaaay. That's two for bad taste, one for inexplicable indications of wealth.

Turning back toward the shining Kinkade Altar, I realized that I'd missed a porcelain Thomas Kinkade commemorative clock ticking away beneath the painting upon a tiny table seemingly built expecially for it. Choking back more liquid revulsion, I passed by into the master bedroom. Upon seeing the terror that greeted me, splattered all over the poor, defenseless walls, I cried out in shock. Not only were the walls peppered with Kinkade prints (at least eight of them), but the wallpaper was Thomas Frickin' Kinkade wallpaper. Who in the name of all that is holy and divine, would ever plaster Thomas Kinkade wallpaper up on their bedroom wall? And for the love of God WHY??? I left it up to Dawn to recount to me the rest of the crimes against good taste that inhabited the room, as I blacked out then and there. After coming to, we entered the final room of the house, ostensibly the baby's room. Those walls bore the final straw of what my delicate will could tolerate: numerous Anne Geddes photos of babies in various ridiculous costumes. That was it. I needed out.

I couldn't even see the damn house through the haze of awful taste that polluted the entire place. I'm glad I saw it though, because before that, I couldn't for the life of me, figure out how the hell a no-talent hack like Thomas Kinkade could possibly stay in business. Now I know. He's independently financed by some inexplicably, independently wealthy blind man.

Photos soon, I promise!

PS - My apologies to anyone out there who actually likes Kinkade or Anne Geddes. But honestly, they're crap.