Stairs



When I was a kid I always wanted to live in a two story house. There was something so intriguing about the stairs. But, no, we always lived in the boring one level house. Not even a basement. And the attic? Just a hole in the ceiling. But when we moved to Kentucky, it was nothing but multilevel dwellings. Now, granted, my husband and I sought and decided on the house we would go in massive debt to buy-our first house purchase ever-but of the many houses we toured and toured and toured in those 48 hours, not one of them was one level. In fact, most of them were more than two levels, were in fact four levels with basement and attic. I went into houses in those days which had a mediocre "main" floor. Then we would walk down the stairs to the basement-a showplace. I felt like I was in a different country.

I mean, I didn't grow up in the flat lands or anything, but the hills around here are certainly not anything I had ever experienced in my previous 36 years. There are houses on the street near mine in which people have to walk twenty stairs or more just to get to their front porch. Their front yard is nothing but a mountain. My husband calls them hills, but when you're standing on the street and you raise your face to the house perched on that angle, well, it sure as heck looks like a mountain to me. And what happens one morning when you go out on your porch and miss a step? You're in for a big fall, my friend. And your first level landing spot is on the street. Wouldn't that be a kicker? If you survive the fall down the stairs, you're likely to be squashed flat by a passing car.

People in this part of this state don't need a stair master at the Y. All they have to do is live in any house here. And do laundry. My washer and dryer are in the basement. Our dirty clothes basket and dressers are on the second floor. As efficient as I have ever been able to get on laundry day is walking up and down ten flights of stairs. That is taking into account three cycles with the washer and dryer.

Yes. I could stay down in the basement while the washer is washing and the dryer is drying. Unfortunately, the house we bought does not have the show place basement. It has the basement in which you have to duck your head in certain spots or else crack your skull on the heating vents. And there is a toilet down there, but that only lends itself to the creep factor of the place because the toilet is perched in a corner without any kind of privacy wall. It just sits there...all exposed. Bizarre. And here's an even more creepy thing. There's a lock on the outside of the door leading down to the basement which has no exits. It has occurred to me that the nice lady who lived here for decades before we did may have had a mentally deranged relative who lived down there involuntarily.

Oh, great. Now I'm going to have nightmares tonight about the ghost of some psycho whose sister locked him in the basement all of his adult life until he died trying to escape through the dryer vent.