I could have had four one-carat diamonds. Quality? Whatever is whitest.
Maybe a sable jacket? No, I’d never want that.
New couch? Definitely. Drapes? House cleaning service? Now, there’s an idea.
But, no. We got a new roof.
It all began when I opened the door to a cubby-type opening in our bedroom to pull out my plastic bin of summer clothes. Slosh. The recessed top of the bin was full of water. Water tends to work its way downward. But from where? No water pipes anywhere near. Errant mountain stream in East Lansing? Nope. There had to be another reason.
It seems that seepage had been going on for months, if not years. Where old roof met newer roof, a joining that pre-dated our ownership of the house, things had gone awry. Over time, the side wall the water had drained through had mostly turned to moist, rotting sawdust. The two roofs had never quite worked it out.
If we must spend our savings, I’d like it to show. Who is ever going to say, “I love your new roof! It does wonders for the character of your house. It’s darling!”?
No one, that’s who.
Replacement lumber in the side wall is now hidden behind our old aluminum siding. The new, white roof that repels heat in summer and captures it in winter is invisible except from across the side street on the corner of the next block. The short brick rooftop chimney, which needed extensive repair, now wears a pristine cover of shiny white lumber. It too will go largely unnoticed until it again becomes dysfunctional.
Sad. Just plain sad. But necessary.
Like the two toilets we got a year or so ago. Taller, faster, wonderful, they refill in a fraction of the time the old ones did, and with less water. But no one has ever emerged from our guest bathroom saying, “What a great new toilet!”
Guests would definitely say nice things if we got a new living room couch. They might not mean it, but they’d say them anyway because a couch is obvious, visible and touchable − conspicuous consumption.
When our main line plumbing gave out ten years ago, we missed a wedding and ended up with a huge scar approximately the size of the Panama Canal across the back yard and down to the street in front. It was conspicuous, alright, but it did not enhance our situation in any way that we wanted to mention.
It seems almost unfair that keeping a house going has to take the place of adventurous vacations and décor that won’t remind everyone of the avocado-and-Early American look that rocked us in the 1950s.
We consume, for sure. But we can’t always consume what we want to consume.
Brussels sprouts, anyone?
