Replacement basement
Would it be wrong of me to try to sleep in the basement tonight? There are some shelves down there I could clear off, and if I covered my face with a sheet I’m pretty sure I could keep the spiders out of my mouth.
Because it’s too hot to move anywhere else in the house. The covers on my bed feel like oven mitts against my skin.
The basement, though, is cool and dry, despite its tendency to fill with backed-up sewage from the clogged main drain (kidding, actually, the sewage hasn’t backed up in at least two months…two months!).
I’ve always been jealous of people with finished basements. Playrooms and exercise rooms and home theaters. The basement is like the bonus round of the house; it’s like the $20 bill you find in the pocket of an old pair of jeans. Who knew? We have more rooms in this house!
But that’s only if you’ve got a finished basement. Then there are basements like mine, which are basically just huge underground closets. These basements are graveyard for things that can’t be categorized. Anything that doesn’t belong anywhere else in the house ends up in the basement.
That’s why every time I go down there I’m overwhelmed with a feeling of wasted potential. All that space, and I use it for storage? And for what? A broken stand-up freezer and a six-piece sectional? An air conditioner that’s too heavy to be lifted to the second floor for installation? These things are the rot that is eating away at the basement of my dreams.
And I can just see it: an extra bathroom with a shower; a laundry room so clean you could iron your clothes on the floor; a den, a library, a TV room, a work room, and another den! And I’m confident I could do all these things myself. I’m handy, I’ve got a power drill. The tough part would be the wiring, but I’ll just look on the Internet (they’ve got everything on the Internet).
It’s like urban renewal for the home; you find the blighted areas and put a little work in and – BLING! – you’ve got half-million dollar condos! But it doesn’t just have to be for your house. Your car, for example, has plenty of space that would benefit from a little renewal. In the trunk, for example, you could fit two or three more seats. Or a make-shift gas tank.
Even your body could stand a little remodeling. You could turn that gall bladder into a second stomach, easy! It’s a weekend project.
The important thing is to make sure you plan ahead. With the basement, you wouldn’t want to spend a bunch of time and money building a home-movie theater and then find out what you really wanted was a dance studio. Same with the body; don’t go turning your liver into a spare kidney unless you’re absolutely certain you won’t need it in the future.
And if you’re absolutely certain you won’t need your liver in the future, may I suggest an appointment with a medical professional?