The Little Cottage That Couldn't

While in my last post I indicated that the original Birch Point cottage is no longer, I didn't really touch upon how that came to be. Again with the Dave telling me I'm not writing a novel thing. As indicated, we really learned to love the little cottage. My parents knew that somewhere down the line they would be demolishing the place and so in the interest of not polishing a turd, they didn't want to put a ton of money into it. Fortunately, I get my design skilz from my mom and she did wonders with the place. I should have her be a guest columnist for my upcoming "Formerly Fabulous" blog as girlfriend was embellishing curtains with freaking POTATO STAMPS. That is correct. My mother made stamps OUT OF POTATOES. Bottom line, tubers notwithstanding, is that the place looked pretty damn cute. Cute, however, does not go a tremendously long way with a rapidly expanding family. In the five or so years since my dad bought the place, my brother and I had both married (to other people, not each other) and the grandchildren were starting to arrive. While my mom had LONG been keen on getting going on a new place (something about carrying wet laundry out to the garage, perhaps?) my dad is not exactly Quickdraw McGraw in the cash disbursement department. He was dragging his heels. Scratch that. He was kind of an immovable wall of "NO" when we all increasingly ratcheted up the begging and crying and screaming for a place that would accommodate our expanding clan. He was like a really good goalie, skillfully deflecting any incoming attack, no matter how talented the shooter. No logical argument could dissuade him from his position that the cottage was perfectly fine at that point in time. Well, as the story goes, one hot, steamy afternoon, those currently in residence at the cottage included my parents, myself and Dave, baby Jack and Coalers, who was Grady's sainted predecessor. He was as big and black and Grady is bad. But sweet as sugar. The only bad things Coalers ever did was work up a lake stink and die, which broke my heart. The dying part, not the lake stink. Although the lake stink was pretty heartbreaking too.  As was the usual practice, everybody was scrambling to get ready for dinner after a day filled with golf, going to the beach, shopping.......the usual summertime leisure pursuits. Like I said, this day was particularly muggy. Off the charts, sticky humidity and heat. Anyone that has spent any time in the upper midwest knows that it is virutally impossible to get ready for anything in these conditions, let alone something requiring decent clothes and makeup. Your clothes instantly stick to your body and your make-up rolls of of your face seconds after it's applied. That is unless you have air conditioning. Most of the cottage did not have a/c. My parents bedroom, which had been added on at some point in distant time and had an air conditioning unit. Soooooo, according to my dad, he had one person in HIS shower, another one on HIS toilet, a toddler bouncing on the bed, me standing in front of my mother's dresser and a wet dog running around and shaking his bad-self around. This inexplicably caused my dad to snap. I'm not sure why. Sounds like a day in the life to me. Regardless, the architect and builder were on the phone the next day. And that was the end of the little cottage that could. It went out in a blaze of glory having MY family as it's final residents. It was probably relieved. Kinda like an old dog that's sad to go but grateful to be put out of it's misery. It was time. Oh there's more peeps. Much, much more. I'll be sharing that with you in the coming days and weeks as well as the very, very interesting daily drama that occurs at the local country club swimming pool.  I'm just reporting it as it happens. And as we know, shit DOES happen. Happy freakin' Friday, everybody!!!!!!