From the sublime to the ridiculous

***Please, if you're a pray-er, before you read this goofy post say a prayer for my friend Liz. Her baby is in the hospital with a mysteriously enlarged heart.***

Tonight we were sitting at the dinner table talking boisterously about the Trojan War. Even Stella was into it, thanks to Marcia Williams. The kids wanted to know: whose fault was it? What if Peleus hadn't married Thetis? What if Eris had managed her penchant for strife a little better? How much agency did Helen really have? I sat there and soaked it in, feeling grateful for my book-loving family. I thought, "I probably shouldn't blog about this. It would sound awfully pretentious."

BUT THEN, friends, then I was returned to earth with a thunderous thump. The topic slid somehow to the secret-secret room. 

What, you may ask, is the secret-secret room? I will tell you. Ten years ago when we had this house inspected, the inspector opened up a doorway into the uninsulated room over the porch. We knew that there was storage space up there, but the previous owners had screwed down the door at all four corners. We expected it to be like a crawl space, full of spiderwebs and squirrel poop. It's actually a reasonable place for kids to play. It's where our vast Lego collection lives. You can see it in the first picture in this post.

What you can't see in that picture is the secret-secret room, a little tucked-away space that's even more low-ceilinged and poorly lit. And did I mention the uninsulated part? Somehow Joe got it into his head that he was going to move out of his perfectly pleasant room, the one with big windows and a view of our lovely leafy backyard tree, and into the secret-secret room. "I can fit a dresser in there!" he insisted. "And a mattress too!" 

Which is true, as long as they come from the Barbie Dream House. (Oh, man, I just googled Dream House vs. Dreamhouse without thinking. Now my browser is going to be full of pink plastic architecture until JANUARY, isn't it? Or even SUMMER?)

The three youngest kids ran upstairs with a tape measure. All of them were seized by secret-secret room fever. "Mom," Stella implored, "may I have the big boxes from there? I need a table in my room." "Sweetheart," I told her, "you cannot fill your room with giant cardboard boxes. We can talk about finding a table for you." Joe was the nuttiest: he really believes it would be awesome to sleep in there. And I guess if you buy into cryotherapy + the hygiene hypothesis, he might be right.

I was trying to knit one of those everlasting dragon mittens while also trying to persuade my children to let sleeping dust-dogs lie. (These are not just any sleeping dust-dogs, either. Think dust-deerhounds.) Finally, I gave up. "Je voudrais annoncer: j'ai oublié comment on parle anglais." Joe, undaunted, launched into halting French. "Je voudrais dormir..." I waved my arms and demanded Swedish instead. 

He vaulted to the computer. "Okay, Google," he said eagerly. "Tell me how to say 'I want to sleep in a box' in Swedish."

So it's great that they know who King Priam was. It would also be great if they were clear on the concept of furniture. Or insulation.

Comments

[el-e-e]

...but you're totally going to let him try it, right? Just for the pre-move-in dust removal (free labor!) and of course, the smug satisfaction of the morning after when he realizes what a goofy idea it was?

I can't wait to hear. ;)

[Ariella]

Hah, this is amazing. Insulation issues aside, I 100% identify with Joe's desire to sleep in a secret-secret room. I always wanted some cozy nook that was away from everything else, especially when I was a kid. Even now it sounds appealing.

[Pippi]

I don't know about Swedish, but in Norwegian it's "Jeg vil sove i en eske!"

We had a secret attic room that I slept in as a kid.I LOVED it. I could make believe I was poor mistreated orphan AND I could hear the rain on roof pattering without the insulation dulling the sound.