My parents, who have expressed love for neither heat nor humidity, bought a summer home in North Carolina. A summer home. As in, a house to go to in the summer in the South. I love my parents, but they're like confused birds -- don't old people usually fly south in the winter? I actually looked up the proper Latin phrase just for this post, and I believe it translates to, "You're going to boil alive, and I get all your stuff. Well, as long as you don't read this blog post first, and write me out of the will completely for suggesting you're old people, leaving all your stuff to Ryan. I knew you liked him better than me."
So, saying they bought a summer home is a bit of a stretch. They bought some land that they intend to go to in the summer, and it has a home on it at the present.
When I say "home" I of course mean "deathtrap that has to be torn down." Apparently the land was a really good idea, though, and it is in a pretty location. Still, their vacation home isn't really a home and isn't really a vacation yet, since they have to tear it down. My mother, who has been working on it for three weeks now, said to me, "I'd ask you to come help, but I know you're having all those mental health issues and stuff, so you can't come right now." For the first time since my personal struggle with mental health has began I though, "Oh thank God I'm crazy because I don't want to do more manual labor."
I'm not entirely sure why they would want me to help, since my track record with these projects has usually involved a lot of whining and pretending to go to the bathroom while really just sitting on the john and reading to avoid work. I guess over the years, though, I've picked up some skills. Before I moved out of home, I helped re-shingle two roofs, install a metal roof, install a drain field (where the sewage goes!), refinish hardwood floors, plane and sand endless pieces of board that was used as baseboards, and paint my own bedroom. (I specify MY bedroom because my mother wouldn't let me near the primer or paint for other rooms of the house, believing that I was going to do it wrong and leave drips or weird brushstrokes -- both of which she is famous for herself.) And all those are just home projects. My parents also heat their home with a wood burning boiler, so every year we had to haul firewood. When we were done hauling firewood, we hauled more firewood, took a break, and then hauled even more. We hauled so much firewood that we used a skid steer loader to do some of it, which I learned to drive. My parents laughingly recall how I, in a fit of rage that I wasn't being allowed to sit indoors with a book where it was clean and not outside, screamed at them that I was a CHILD and shouldn't know how to drive a skid steer loader and it was CHILD ABUSE or at least CHILD LABOR and why can't I just go inside now? They actually have lots of stories that involve me screaming outrageous things in a fit of rage. Ask them about it sometime.
Sure, I've aged some and matured a very little bit, but my commitment to not getting dirt on me and whining when I do get dirt on me has not lessened. Now, my mom calls me regularly to check up on me (remember, I'm crazy) and tells me how it's going. She's the picture of cheerful optimism. It makes me kind of ill. She's all, "The house is coming along great and we just love it down here!" No matter how much I try to point out that she is getting actual dirt on her -- dirt that makes her hands feel chalky and gets under her fingernails and makes her feel a little anxious (that last part might be me) -- she cheerfully continues to recount stories of the house and hiking (outdoors!) and the cute things Cassie is doing.
I think I'm adopted. I also think I hope that they build a really cool house there and I can visit it.
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