Thin Walls

Winter Hits My House Hard

Oh, fuck, it’s winter, and I didn’t prepare for it.

My house is made of cardboard and plastic vinyl. It floats over a crawl space that freezes in winter and floods in the spring. My winter preparations include throwing blankets over the entry to that crawl space to keep the furnace’s heat in, which keeps the water pipes from freezing.

I didn’t do it. Instead, I’ve been complaining about the weather and about the price of firewood these days. Shmuck!

I’m away from my poor house this week, doing my every-other-month visit to my grandson in South Carolina (where it’s only 16 degrees and windy this Christmas Eve morning). My house is being occupied in our absence by my neighbor, Andy, who is responsible for any and every amenity my house has had to offer in the course of our thirty-six-year habitation. Andy was burned out of his own house several months ago and has been living in a tent he set up on the property while the insurance company and repair company collude to defraud each other, so it’s been a reprieve for him to stay in our little house whenever we come to SC — but oh, my, he’s had to deal this week with frozen pipes and sump pump spraying and other near-calamities. . .

Because oh, fuck, it’s winter, and I didn’t prepare for it.

I’ve always anticipated getting old in this house, and I’m on my way, but without Andy, I’d already be living in a retirement village (and whining about it).

Here’s the page about him and my house from my newish book, MY STUFF, Vols. 1, 2 & 3 (coauthored with Mikhail Horowitz and Carol Zaloom, and available at the Alte website). This particular entry was not written, obviously enough, in the winter.

Hail Andy, my hero, and all the people who know how to do the real-life things that keep us out of the gutter!