Just chillin’ on the North side..
Just try to imagine being in a hurricane with high winds, lots of dust but no rain. We experienced a couple of days of that kind of weather here this past weekend. From inside the local Best Buy store, I could see overcast skies, a cloud of dust moving in from the south, and trees branches flexing with the wind. The store lights flickered on, then off and on again. It was time to head for home.
I could feel that the temperature had dropped a few degrees and I felt a chill as I weaved the Vue through holiday season traffic. It brought to mind a certain winter gone by and those days I suffered in that little shotgun-style house I was living in at that time. The landlord owned and lived in the house next door, we had an “all-bills-paid” arrangement and for reasons unknown, he just disappeared one day and never returned. Apparently he had not been paying the utility bill because within a few days of each other, the electricity and the gas were both turned off. Imagine daily temperatures averaging in the teens and twenties, an old house with inadequate insulation, no electricity, no gas to heat the house or cook and no money to get the utilities turned back on. That’s what awaited me every evening after work. Once the sun went down I moved through the house in darkness. I dreaded taking showers in water so cold, my whole body continued to tremble even after I jumped out, dried off and put on several layers of clothes to try to get warm. No electricity meant no lights, no tv, no radio and no electric heater. Trying to sleep under several blankets and comforters was difficult and I could feel cold air coming up through the wood floors and through the mattress I lay on. Sandwiching myself between blankets and a comforter beneath me and two or three blankets over me helped me to get through nights when being sure to leave the faucets dripping was probably the only thing that kept the pipes from freezing. I suffered in silence until a note on the front door, posted by the Sheriff’s department, informed me that the house was being repossessed and I had just a few days to move out. I call that “good news” that was meant to be bad news.
I moved out with days to spare and found a better place that was a lot cheaper, all bills (that were actually being paid), and it was WARM, REAL WARM. Can you say, ” All’s well that ends well.”?
It’s been awhile since I last drove down that street. But the house was still there……and still empty.