The Two Little Pigs

Hi Folks!

Golly, but I wish this blog was going to be about two cute little porcine pals! Unfortunately, it's going to be about the human kind of pigs instead. Ordinarily, I would keep this sort of thing to myself, but I recently had such a depressing experience that I'm in danger of losing my faith in humanity.

What happened was this: my landlord needed the chicken coop for his mother-in-law, a woman of advancing years and a measure of decrepitude. He offered me the apartment above the garage, but since I was boxing up my stuff anyway, it seemed like a good time to move on.

I first went looking at apartments, and then at houses to rent. There was nothing suitable for five cats and a woman with 44-years-worth of accumulated stuff. So I started looking at houses to buy. I found a pretty cool one with lots of landscaping (for me to play with) and plenty of windows (for the cats' birdwatching hobby). I made an offer, we went back and forth, and finally we all reached agreement on a price. Everything seemed great until I started moving in.

I knew that the previous owners had a dog. I had no idea what a big hairy beast it was until I went to do a little pre-move cleaning. It was then I discovered two things: 1) that the previous owners had apparently never ever cleaned the house - even when they lived in it, and 2) that the previous owners left me all sorts of fun things to deal with myself. In the shed out back I found 12 cans of paint that I had no use for, 8 packages of roofing shingles that I was pretty sure I'd never use, a set of 7 weights that I had no intention of lifting, and 2 outdated computer monitors.

In the back yard, the previous owners left me a number of piles of dog poop - even though I had intentionally written into the purchase agreement, "Sellers will remove dog waste from yard." It looked to me as though they had never bothered to scoop the big dog's poop anyway, so their thinking was probably, "Why start now?"

Inside, the house was a nightmare: there was so much long black dog hair that it had actually begun creeping up - and sticking to - the walls. There were piles of it in every corner of the house, and under every single appliance. It was disgusting. There's also an old urine puddle in the family room carpet that no amount of professional cleaning is going to remove. I can't begin to describe the stink I'm enduring every night as I sit down to watch the news.

As I scrubbed and mopped and swept and cleaned that place, I became more and more disgusted and disheartened: not only was I cleaning the new place, but I was also trying to get the chicken coop ship-shape at the same time. Know why? Because it's the right thing to do. You make a mess, you clean it up. You don't leave your yuck for someone else to deal with. At least, that's how it works in Kelly World, where people say "hi" to each other on the street, leave their doors unlocked knowing that no one is going to come in and burgle them, and the planet is generally a well-ordered place. Reality, though, is obviously another matter entirely.

It's important that you know I'm not a neat freak. Far from it. There are many things I'd rather do than clean: I'd rather have a root canal than clean my house. I'd rather be in a fiery car wreck than clean my house. I'd rather spend time with people I can't stand than clean my house. So I'm not writing this blog from an obsessive-compulsive standpoint. I'm writing because Josh and Kate Koester, formerly of Walbridge, Ohio, and now members of the Marie Lane, Maumee, Ohio community, don't even have the decency to be embarassed about being such incredible pigs.

It appeared, when I first looked at the house, that Josh has an interest in JRR Tolkein-type stuff. I'd spend a lot of time in fantasy land, too, if I was married to a woman who couldn't be bothered to keep house. By the same token, I wouldn't waste time being married to a man who didn't do his share of the housework. Clearly, these two are made for each other, which is a good thing because I'm fairly certain no one else on the planet would have either of them.

Because I'm a big believer in fairness, I've written the Koesters of Marie Lane, Maumee, Ohio, a letter informing them of their "oversight" in leaving so much of their property behind, and I've also let them know about this blog. I've offered them the opportunity to come and get their belongings (dog poop included, so buy your first scooper and bring it along!) in exchange for which I would be willing to remove this blog from the site. They frankly don't deserve such generosity, but you know what? It's important that at least SOME of us behave well, even if others don't.

That's it for now. Thanks for letting me vent my spleen, and I promise that the next blog will be about something interesting: my favorite duck on the whole pond, Pretty Boy! Check out his pictures in the Critter Pics section of my website so you can see what all the fuss is about. Until next time, please be kind to all the animals!