First off, I'd like to send out a big FUCK YOU to the mouth-breathing ass biters who have lived in our house before us. I kind of hope that it's been a large number of folks because I hate to think of so much stupidity concentrated in one entity.
What brings forth such tender sentiments? You see, we've been working on remodeling our bathroom. It has turned into an archaeological dig of sorts. Indy would be proud.
This is the story as well as we've been able to reconstruct it (pun partially intended):
A long time ago, in a galaxy right about where I'm sitting, our house was built. The year was 1969. Despite the amount of acid that was being dropped amongst the general populace and the amount of high explosives being dropped in Vietnam, our bathroom managed to turn out OK. Sure the builders were nearly criminal in their stinginess (aluminum wiring, improperly graded home sites, ignored soil reports, kitchen cabinetry that collapsed if you tried to use it because it was held up by a few nail, etc.), but at least the bathroom looked nice with light peach walls and a toilet that could take even a monster turd without having to flush three times.
Life must have progressed normally, people splashing in the tub, condensation running down the aluminum window frames to rot the wooden sill because of a lack of a fan, the toilet swallowing monster turd after monster turd without a fan to evacuate the aroma, that sort of thing.
Then one fateful day, someone got an idea that would make Sharon Stone's husband's barefoot visit with a Komodo dragon look like a work of genius. They covered the perfectly fine walls, walls that would've been in fashion even in 2002, with a nauseating marigold-pattern wall paper. With one foul stroke, the bathroom mutated from a timeless beauty to a wooly mammoth of fashion smothered in amber circa 1976.
Not much splashing in the tub would've been allowed after than as the wallpaper would get wet and fall off. Turds would be pinched off with alacrity in order to minimize exposure to the mind-degrading green-and-orange pattern. One could imagine (god forbid) Austin Powers grunting and groaning to the funkiness on the walls, sweat and veins popping from his forehead.
At some point, the fashion bubble popped. Someone fired both neurons in their head and realized that the paper on the wall was a crime against humanity. Unfortunately, this individual lacked the crucial third neuron that enables wall paper removal.
See, the knuckle dragger knew enough to score the wallpaper in order to make it easier to wet down and remove. How do we know this? Well, half of the bathroom walls are covered in gashes that look like they were made with a screwdriver. Mr. Cretin scored the wallpaper all right, but he also ripped up the wallboard underneath.
Notice that I said "half of the bathroom walls are covered in gashes." Ass-for-brains must have recognized the error of his ways or just given up, because only half of the abomination wallpaper was removed.
I can see the poor loser now, both neurons firing like crazy, standing in the middle of the ruins that once were his bathroom, scarred wall on one side and flowers of Satan covering the other wall. Something must have snapped, because everything then got a thin coat of white paint.
Paint works miracles, but it does not absolve a home owner of all sins, especially sins as mortal as those that had just been committed in our future bathroom.
So in the spirit of sweeping a bloated horse carcass under the carpet, everything was covered with a dark blue wall paper.
Years later, I stand in the middle of the bathroom, wishing desperately to be able to reach through space and time, grab those numbnuts by their short hairs, and give them a good, swift yank.
You want to know the saddest part? I've just pulled down the wallboard on one of the walls in order to install a shower surround. The entire wall is nothing but framing and it really improves the bathroom's appearance.
I keep expecting Indy's giant rolling boulder to come crashing through the ceiling.
Pakeha