The Existentialist Next Door

I'm leaving in eight hours, and I haven't done any looting or smashing. Normally, I'd have no strong urge to go into a house and wreck up the place, but the house next door, scheduled to be bulldozed to the ground on Monday, seems like a once-in-a-lifetime oppurtunity. An oppurtunity, of course, that I can't take.

For those of you who don't await my every update in trembling rapture, the story is as follows: our new neighbor paid quite a bit of money for a large house, only to decide that he wanted to start with a clean slate. So he gave the keys to my dad and told him that anything left in the house on Monday would be destroyed.

We looked through the house a few days later. The books, works by Proust, Asimov, Le Carre, Russians, Frenchmen, and assorted existentialists, were interesting, and I wish that the owner hadn't returned to reclaim them. On the plus side, I now live by someone with a refined taste in books (as well as patience; he's read thousands of pages of Proust).

We took out two Murphy beds, some cabinets, every lightbulb, every light fixture, old doorknobs, stained glass windows, closet doors, and other paraphenalia. Later, my dad invited my relatives over, and they took out the water heater and anything else of value.

Now the house stands empty. I asked my dad, a week ago, if we (my friends and I) could smash a house that was going to be smashed anyways. He said no. He claimed that, while he understood my point, the owner only wanted him going inside. And, though he said he would give us permission in the owner's place, he added that we didn't have our new neighbor's approval.

I told him to ask for permission. When the neighbor called a few days later, to clarify exactly what we could take, my dad didn't mention the smashing he supposedly approved. I asked him, tonight, why he hadn't, and he excused himself by commenting that our neighbor was "a strange character".

So, no smashing. There was more, a rant, but writing it was enough. I'm a little upset and not at all suprised that, once again, I've been held back by forces ostensibly beyond my control. But more than anything else, I'm tired, and it's far too late already.

I'll write later, at Lawrence, unless I die in a tragic auto accident on the icy, icy roads, taking several innocent passengers with me.