The Happy Slumlord
PROLOGUE
Once upon a time, there lived a little girl who grew up under big trees, next to rusted cars, and on top of cracked pavement. Through the pavement, weeds grew, and trees and sometimes flowers. "I, too, shall grow up through the pavement of my blue collar environs, and be something special!" she thought. Though she did love the feel of coarse, aging sidewalk bumps against her barefeet as she ran to the house for lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup with elbows.
She was a bright girl, and over the years had several stabs at becoming something special. "I'm on the honor roll; I will become an academic!" But she couldn't stay on course for one reason or another. "I will help children; I will be a teacher!" But that seemed too small a roll, an easy way out, and the girl thought she should be more ambitious. "I will write novels! I will be an actress! I will be so profound that someone is bound to notice!"
Didn't happen.
The girl had too many ideas in her head, too many different personalities that just kept cancelling each other out, leaving her back at the beginning, and nothing very special at all.
Then one day, she looked around and realized she was still walking on crumbly pavement and passing rusted cars and that the lonely old people made her sad. So she moved to a little box that would not remind her where she came from. "Maybe now," she thought, "I can get on with the business of becoming something special."
But the crumpled house, a very tan Realtor told her, would only sell for $20,000 less than the girl owed the bank for the privilege of having lived in it, and this was called "being upside down" in a bad market. In her mind, the girl's secret back-up plan for life inched ever closer: to give up being special and instead move to her small trailer and die a stressed and pitied old woman. But first, one last adventure: to rent the hovel and become a landlord. The irony! She wanted to laugh, but wept; now she would be responsible for keeping up and repairing the house for strangers when she'd never lifted a finger to do so for herself.
Despair set it. Diets were blown, and hot fudge sundaes were consumed. Visions of foreclosure, failure, and catatonic states danced before the girl's eyes. The knowing nods that would follow. Less than nothing special, all along.
Suddenly, her vehicle started spinning madly, wildly, on the icey surface of 8 Mile Road, looping like the Tilt-O-Whirl at 45 miles per hour, and no amount of wheel turning could correct the course. "Funny, that I would die here," she thought, certain that a building would smash into her at any moment. With half-hearted effort and no hope, she pumped the brakes with a militant beat. The vehicle slid into a curb, pointed its nose toward oncoming traffic, and, miraculously, stopped. She pulled the car around, noted the constellation of approaching headlights, and stopped at a red light.
Then she thought, "I can at least be kind." The traffic light turned green.
"I can at least be kind on my way down. In that way, I can know some joy, no matter the dismal spiral." She accelerated slowly toward the box that did not remind her of her origins. "I can be kind, if not special, and enjoy that I am kind until it's time for me to jump the shark. And if perhaps, by random chance, good things happen on the way down, I will be all the happier for never expecting them."
So it was that the girl embarked upon her new lot in life, not one of any particular importance, and one that was certain to accelerate her demise, but one that must be tried: The Happy Slumlord.
She was a bright girl, and over the years had several stabs at becoming something special. "I'm on the honor roll; I will become an academic!" But she couldn't stay on course for one reason or another. "I will help children; I will be a teacher!" But that seemed too small a roll, an easy way out, and the girl thought she should be more ambitious. "I will write novels! I will be an actress! I will be so profound that someone is bound to notice!"
Didn't happen.
The girl had too many ideas in her head, too many different personalities that just kept cancelling each other out, leaving her back at the beginning, and nothing very special at all.
Then one day, she looked around and realized she was still walking on crumbly pavement and passing rusted cars and that the lonely old people made her sad. So she moved to a little box that would not remind her where she came from. "Maybe now," she thought, "I can get on with the business of becoming something special."
But the crumpled house, a very tan Realtor told her, would only sell for $20,000 less than the girl owed the bank for the privilege of having lived in it, and this was called "being upside down" in a bad market. In her mind, the girl's secret back-up plan for life inched ever closer: to give up being special and instead move to her small trailer and die a stressed and pitied old woman. But first, one last adventure: to rent the hovel and become a landlord. The irony! She wanted to laugh, but wept; now she would be responsible for keeping up and repairing the house for strangers when she'd never lifted a finger to do so for herself.
Despair set it. Diets were blown, and hot fudge sundaes were consumed. Visions of foreclosure, failure, and catatonic states danced before the girl's eyes. The knowing nods that would follow. Less than nothing special, all along.
Suddenly, her vehicle started spinning madly, wildly, on the icey surface of 8 Mile Road, looping like the Tilt-O-Whirl at 45 miles per hour, and no amount of wheel turning could correct the course. "Funny, that I would die here," she thought, certain that a building would smash into her at any moment. With half-hearted effort and no hope, she pumped the brakes with a militant beat. The vehicle slid into a curb, pointed its nose toward oncoming traffic, and, miraculously, stopped. She pulled the car around, noted the constellation of approaching headlights, and stopped at a red light.
Then she thought, "I can at least be kind." The traffic light turned green.
"I can at least be kind on my way down. In that way, I can know some joy, no matter the dismal spiral." She accelerated slowly toward the box that did not remind her of her origins. "I can be kind, if not special, and enjoy that I am kind until it's time for me to jump the shark. And if perhaps, by random chance, good things happen on the way down, I will be all the happier for never expecting them."
So it was that the girl embarked upon her new lot in life, not one of any particular importance, and one that was certain to accelerate her demise, but one that must be tried: The Happy Slumlord.
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