You have nothing to lose but your jacuzzi and maybe a spare bedroom or two
This Perhaps Somewhat Unnecessarily Large Old House
Starring Karl Marx
Learn the secrets of home repair while undergoing Communist Party indoctrination with a real pro
Marx
Hello, I'm Karl Max, and welcome back to This Perhaps Somewhat Unnecessarily Large Old House.We're back at our project site in North Reading, Massachusetts, a shamefully large so-called single-family McMansion overlooking a lake with plenty of wooded acreage and lawn for the self-satisfied owner's four no-doubt spoiled children. Unfortunately, all is not well here in Disneyland, however. We've got a jacuzzi on the first floor with a broken thermostat, some shoddy electrical wiring on the second floor, and the glass in the third-floor sun room is reportedly developing leaks and discoloration. And that's not all: As irresponsibly huge as this place may already seem to us mere mortals, it's still not large enough for the ego of the capitalist owners, so we're helping them erect a new 3-story addition out back, complete with game room, sun deck, guest parking garage, miniature bowling alley, and two micro-breweries. (For shame!) In short, we've got our work cut out for us this morning.
Ah, here's the owner now! John, how's it going?!
Hello, Karl!
Marx
You're just in time to watch us pour the cement into the forms for the new addition. Let's go out back and see how Tommy's coming along with that. Walking out back
Wow! So this is going to be huge, John!
That's right.
Marx
My goodness, we must be talking 1,000 square feet out here.Well, we felt the need to stretch out.
Marx
Indeed. And so the fact that I am personally forced to live in a matchbox in Dorchester with five complete strangers doesn't bother you a bit, then, does it, John?
Excuse me, Karl?
Marx
What? Oh, I said that the neighbor's won't bother you a bit, John, when you're way back here in this new addition.Um, no. But then the nearest neighbors are a half-mile away, Hugo, because we bought up all the surrounding land, remember? -- we like our privacy, you understand.
Marx
Oh, of course. A lot of privacy I get: I share a bathroom with an irritatingly perky government intern who clips his toenails at the dinner table and keeps mysteriously reminding me that he works for the CIA. Yeah, I'll bet. He probably fetches coffee for the admin assistants.
What's that?
Marx
Oh, nothing. Nothing. You'd think the fate of the free world already lay on his self-important 20-something shoulders.
Sorry, I didn't catch that.
Marx
Oh, here's Tommy now.Of course, the bathroom itself is a joke.
I beg your pardon?
Marx
I said, having only three bathrooms is a joke.Oh, that's right: That's why we're going to add three more in the new addition, so each family member will have their own bathroom.
Marx
Well, tooty-fruity for you.
Did you say something?
Marx
Er, I said, good for you, John! The lucky sap...
Marx
So, Tom, tell us what you're up to with that polyurethane there. It looks like you're using some of that newfangled foam insulation instead of the usual expanded polystyrene. his voice soon drowned out by the ongoing spiteful mutterings of the show host
Yeah, well, polyurethane is a much better insulator and it comes in these convenient structural panels here so we can basically just snap it together...Marx
I made the mistake of actually trying to take a bath in the bath tub once...
continuing in background... and we work toward the center, evenly applying this monolithic epoxy...
Marx
So I stand up after my bath, right?, and I kid you not: half the friggin' tub comes off on my back side thanks to a recent slapdash paint job performed at the behest of the cheapskate landlord!
...Karl, do you want to hold this Skil saw for me?
Marx
Huh? Oh, yes, of course. So I'm standing there in my birthday suit, right?, with half the freakin' tub pasted to my backside, asking myself: "Okay, right: Now how precisely am I supposed to get this #$@ stuff off of me!"
I'll just run this gas-powered vibrator through the cement here one last time...
vroom vroom, etc.
... and then we're done with the foundation.Marx
Okay, thank you, Tommy. So how does it feel, John? How does WHAT feel, Karl?
Marx
I mean, your three-story addition is coming right along, isn't it? It's just great. My wife and I can't wait to start brewing our own beer in our own micro-breweries.
Marx
Indeed. You do realize that I live in a closet, John? An actual closet?
I beg your pardon?
Marx
What? Oh, nothing: I was just wondering to myself how many closets you will have in this house after this new addition goes up. Oh, let's see, 4, 5, 6... 21, 22, 23...
Marx
Well, there will be a lot of closets, let's leave it at that, John! Now, let's also leave Tommy to his work while we check out the jacuzzi on the first floor of the existing structure. I understand that you're dealing with a broken thermostat in there.Marx
John, meet our Jacuzzi expert, Frank Lane. Frank, what's the problem here? Well, these top-of-the-line Jacuzzis usually have their grommet seals on top of the filter box, and what happens sometimes with that is...
Marx
I know what you're thinking: You're thinking, how could a middle-aged adult like me end up living in a matchbox in Dorchester, sharing a grossly inadequate bathroom with a pretentious CIA intern who cuts his toenails at the dinner table?
...this sensor sleeve starts to rub against the pump gasket like this...
Marx
Of course, the stock answer is, Capitalism did this to me...
...now, then: this is a high-torque hose cable here, and so the friction of the sleeve kit on the ozone dispersion filter rattles the sensor here...
Marx
Yet I sometimes think (may Nikolai Lenin forgive me) that I'm lashing out at an ideological bogey-man here when by rights I should be examining my childhood relationship with my father, which was non-existent, basically.
...so to fix that, we just take this lug wrench and...
Marx
Unless you call yelling and screaming a relationship, of course.
Uh, Karl?
Marx
I mean, if he wanted me to mow the lawn, for instance, he could have just told me so, like any ordinary human being: "Karl, please mow the lawn. Thank you very much, son." He didn't have to get all up in my face, talking about, "You lazy bum: Your mother's sick in bed and here you are just lolly-gagging about the house: Now get out there and WORK!"
Marx
That's it! I see it all now! It wasn't private property that was ruining my life, after all.
What?
Marx
It was the psychological residue of the toxic waste cleanup site known as my childhood!!! Love Canal had nothing on it!
Karl! Snap out of it!
Marx
What? Oh, um, sorry about that. I was just daydreaming. I've fixed the thermostat, Karl. You can wrap up the show now, because it looks like we're out of time.
Marx
Oh, of course. Listen, John, this is a wonderful house project, and I want you to know that I'm behind you 100%, notwithstanding any spiteful mutterings that you may have heard from me in this or previous episodes. Why, thank you, Karl. Yes, I was wondering about some of your whispered asides, there. You did seem a little angry.
Marx
Spite, John: Sheer spite. (My bad.)What's more, I'm going to move out of that closet today and start living like a normal human being again, now that I've got a little money coming in from my show-hosting duties.
What's that, Karl?
Marx
Who knows? Maybe the thing will go into syndication, and then, I, too, could live in an Unnecessarily Large House like this one..
Excuse me?
Marx
I think I'll even go John here one better and erect a four-story addition!.
Come again, Karl?
Marx
What's that, John? Oh, yes, that's right: Come again, everybody, because we're back next week with another episode when we rip out the obsolete knob-and-tube wiring in the second floor bedrooms. Until then, I'm Karl Marx... I'm John Q. Property Owner.
I'm Tom Silver.
And I'm Frank Lane.
Marx
For This Justifiably Large Old House!Marx
Father, you will hold me back no longer! Do you hear?! I am free! I am free!!!
John, Tom, and Frank: Excuse me???
c.2010 Brian Quass, Alexandria, VA USA