It’s official. After seven months of talking about moving from Mulletville to Mulletville Lite, we finally have a moving date. In two weeks we’ll be out of here.
Even though I’ve hated on this town for almost six years, I’m not eager to leave our house. I love our old house, so much so I was having second thoughts about moving.
Then my friend said that she mentioned to a realtor that our home was on the market, and the realtor laughed and called Mulletville a shithole.
The realtor is right. Mulletville is a shithole, and the damn town almost duped me into falling for it all over again. See, what I haven’t mentioned is that when Chuck and I first drove though Mulletville, we loved it. The old buildings were grand and majestic. There was no traffic, no hustle. Homes were affordable. The downtown was decorated with banners claiming that Mulletville was on the cusp of a revitalization. The newspapers said so too.
It seemed the perfect spot to settle down.
The first year we lived here, we joined the townspeople in their excitement over Mulletville’s impending rejuvenation. It was so close, we all said. Soon the drug dealers would be gone. The vacant downtown storefronts would be full of quaint stores and restaurants. Our friends would stop mocking our move away from civilization.
Rah, rah!
Months went by. The banners started to fade and fray. Years went by. The banners came down. The downtown buildings were still vacant except for smoke shops and pawn shops. Instead of fewer drug dealers, there were now child molesting drug dealers. A new mayor was voted in; instead of rallying the people at town meetings, he slept (in a stroke of genius the people voted in a man who works the night shift at another job).
A few Mulletville diehards continued to sing the fight song but watching them was like watching a small crowd cheer for a 90-year-old one-legged, dehydrated, blind marathon runner with gout who was running in the wrong direction.
You wanted to shake them and shout “It’s over, dipshits. It’s Michael Moore’s ‘Roger & Me’ all over again, except Mulletville’s heyday was in the 1800s. Go home.”
So yah, I had a serious case of beer goggles when we bought our home, and my love of the memories we've made in our home almost made me bed Mulletville all over again. Slutbag! And it’s funny, I was chipper and snarky when I started this post and now I’m just sad. Even though I hate Mulletville, sometimes you want the sickly 90-year-old one-legged, directionally challenged, blind marathon runner to win the race. Just to prove the naysayers wrong. Just so you could clink your beer mug to the underdog finally getting his day.
But nope. A shithole is just a shithole and soon this town will just be a memory.
(Except for when we need to go to the dentist, pediatrician, hospital, general physician, Walmart or pawn shops. Curses!)
11 comments:
Congrats on sort of making it out of Mulletville alive. May Mulletville Lite be good to you all.
Welcome to the hood.
My best guesses on your blue mood...
A) You are still hormonal from Diddly-do's birth.
B) If no longer dealing with baby/birth hormones, you are borderline first period after Diddly and a hot mess b/c if those hormones.
C) You got into the wine pretty good just before composing this post.
D) Any other possible conclusion besides actual sadness to be leaving Mulletville.
I simply wont accept the alternative...which is that you are, in fact, blue to be leaving said shithole.
PS. If you haven't gotten into the wine, perhaps you should. It will help with the transition.
I, too, live in a shithole (although I prefer the term "armpit"), but the difference is, I grew up here and I can remember when it was a thriving bustling place and the storefronts were filled to bursting.
It makes me think of that Doris Lessing novel, Shikasta, from the Canopus in Argos series, about this planet that temporarily got cut off from the source of love and compassion in the universe. All these extra-terrestrial beings who were charged with helping the planet make it until the galaxy reconfigured again kept saying, "Poor, suffering Shikasta."
You're going to have to change your header again.
It's funny how we get attached to places, even if those places suck. You'll be happier out of the 'ville and into the Lite.
I am thrilled for you. Except for the moving part. That sucks.
Maybe you should take some more time to mullet over?
I grew up in a shithole that sounds alarmingly similar in some ways to Mulletville. You can't help but love it, and you can't help but leave it. Everybody loves an underdog. Nobody wants to live with one. Good luck in the Lite, and thanks for your comment on my blog recently (or not so recently as the case might be; I haven't exactly been on top of things over there lately!). I appreciated you reading and commenting. Hopefully Spring will hold off and we can stay with our babies a little longer. Two more weeks seems impossibly short to me right now.
Well now...that's just sad because I would cheer for the shithole underdogs too! I am sorry girlie...hope Mulletville Lite is a smooth move.
Best,
Tina
Good luck with moving and making the transition smoothly!
Don't worry: when you marry Mulletville Lite, you can still keep Mulletville as your mistress.
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