Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 18, 1994 TAG: 9404190027
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITORIAL EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Monty S. Leitch
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
THE OTHER week at a breakfast meeting I ended up sitting with two couples who were discussing the finer points of carpeting. It seems that these two couples are each in the process of redecorating, and that one husband among them is a consumer so responsible he's actually checked out what "Consumer's Guide" has to say about rugs.
"You must understand," one of the wives told me (noticing, no doubt, the bewildered look on my face), "that for them" - and here she referred to the other couple - "redecoration is a favorite pastime. Since we've bought our house, we've been consulting them as experts."
I nodded. I smiled politely.
"We've lived in our house only 11 years," the other wife said proudly, "and the walls of one of our rooms has already had three different wallpapers on it!"
"Our happiest days," her husband added, "are spent perusing Lowe's."
I must admit, I was glad to be included in the conversation. But, really, their carpet discussion was above me. (Or should I say "beneath me"?) Words were bandied about, the definitions of which I haven't the faintest clue. Fiber content and varying weights constituted important points.
After carpets, they moved on to paints. Van Gogh and Renoir could not have considered the various hues or the staying power of different pigments more carefully than did these folks.
Wanting to do my conversational part, I said, "I pick my paints according to what washes out of the brush."
The husband/expert nodded politely. "Latex is good," he said.
I live in a house that's probably a hundred years old. There are rooms in my house that haven't been papered or painted the first time, let alone thrice in 11 years!
But since that conversation, I've been having the strangest dreams. Nearly every night, I've dreamt that I've opened a door I've never noticed before and there - lo and behold - are six more rooms to my house!
They're exquisite, spacious rooms, too, with lots of light and real wood panelling and parquet floors. Some even have furniture scattered about. A baby grand piano. A mahoghany breakfront with glass-paned doors. A lovely art-nouveau bedroom suite, with a big round mirror over the vanity.
Excitedly, I start planning how to decorate these new rooms. "At last," I think, "I'll have a guest room! A dining room big enough for everyone in my family!" In the latest version of this dream, I even discovered a huge, linoleum-floored playroom with Big-Wheels scattered about. "For the nieces and nephews!" I planned.
Then I went to look out of my new front door. Which, much to my dismay, I discovered had been jimmied. Just at that moment, from the corner of my eye, I caught sight of an intruder skulking about in the basement (also a new and exciting addition).
And that's when I woke up screaming.
Literally.
The rooms, I dreamed. The intruder, I dreamed. The scream was real.
As were the rest of that particular sleepless night and my subsequent sore throat.
Since then I've been trying to figure out what this means. And I think I finally have. It means that, for me, latex is good. It's plenty good enough. And I should just keep on choosing my color schemes exactly as I have been: by checking out in the barn to see what paint we have left in a can that's not too rusted to use.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB