I’m 28 years old. I feel like I’m 78 years old. Not so much in a physical sense, although I do have a bad hip that predicts the weather. No, I’m talking mentally, psychologically, emotionally: you know, THE BRAIN.
I’m an old young man is what I’m saying. I hate Facespace, Mybook, iEverything and kids these days. Have you seen kids these days? Jesus!
I’m not fond of cellphones. I don’t own one and I don’t want one. I have a home phone and an answering machine and dammit, I like it that way. Plus, I’ve never texted. I don’t know how and it scares me. I look around and all I see is people looking down, twitching their thumbs and slowly developing the posture of a velociraptor.
Get this; sometimes I do things without taking a picture of it. Yesterday I baked a potato, but you’d be hard-pressed to find it on Instayam.
I still pay my bills by cheque. It’s good exercise. Plus, I don’t trust Bill Gates. How do you think he got so goddamn rich?
The old ways are the best ways I say. So this is my column, Grumpy Young Man. Every week or whenever I feel like it, I’ll go off on something that irks me. This edition is titled House Tours.
House warming parties mean house tours. People can’t wait to show you their house: “Hey, here’s why we don’t do anything anymore.”
But before they go into the benefits of a fixed-rate mortgage, they usually say something super lame, like “Welcome to our humble abode.” What? How about you just call it what it is? A money pit. Or house, whichever you prefer.
Then they go, “want the tour?” I thought this was a humble abode. Showing off doesn’t seem very humble. “Hey we have a house. You live in an apartment, right? That’s nice. We have a house.”
So you go on this tour and they take you places like the bedroom. Ever see a bedroom? Don’t want to ruin the surprise, but it has a bed in it.
At this point somebody on the tour will surely say “Oh, so this is where the magic happens.” Sorry, but sex isn’t magic. I guess you could incorporate a wand, but I prefer to use a penis. Call me old-fashioned.
Sometimes they even take you to the bathroom.
“Well, we put in new tile around the tub, because the other stuff was SO ugly. Brand new low flush toilet, because, well, the environment. Oh, the sink. That was here already. Don’t you just love it? It’s so retro.” That’s great. I’m sold. I’m going to take a shit here later. I’m sorry, that was rude. Tell me more about THE BATHROOM.
The kitchen is a staple of the house tour. Now, I have no qualms with kitchens. Kitchens are practical. But I also like living rooms. See there’s a strange phenomenon in house parties where the action moves from the living room to the kitchen. The COUCH-LESS kitchen. This is where I try to direct the conversation to topics like “Hey, remember over there in the living room? You know, the couches with the sitting.”
Anyway, back to the tour. Hey, here’s a tour idea, how about showing me to the cheese and crackers. That’s my kind of tour, the kind that starts with cheese and ends with crackers. Seriously though, if it wasn’t for cheese and crackers, I wouldn’t even be here.
Sometimes they’ll take you to the basement. Often the basement is unfinished, but they’ll say something like “Well, just imagine there’s a rec room here, a laundry there and a guest bedroom there.” How about you imagine it and then do it and then show me later.
Things go awry even before the tour. I mean it starts off okay, your gracious host asking you “Can I take your coat?” Why yes, that would be nice. Then they throw your coat onto a big pile of other coats. So you can afford a house, but couldn’t afford a couple hangers. Oh, is that what my house warming gift was supposed to be? A hanger?
Anyway, nice place. How about those cheese and crackers?
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Jared Story is a stand-up comedian and freelance writer. Yes, it’s a pen name. His real name is Dave, Dave Story. Follow him on Twitter at @jrockarolla.