So will it be the “girl room”, or the “man room”?
May 2, 2007, 6:31 PM
That’s the question I’ve posed to my parents about my soon-to-be-former room once I completely vacate it. But first there’s a back-story to it.
When Uncle Johnny and Aunt Beth came to visit two weeks ago, they described about how they repurposed their three children’s former bedrooms now that they had all moved out. The idea was that rather than referring to the rooms by who’s not in them (i.e. “Kate’s old room”, “Jesse’s old room”, and “Jan’s old room”), they would refer to them by what they were now using the rooms for. Thus one bedroom became the “girl room”, another one became the “man room”, and the third became the “sewing room”.
Now in our family, there are only two children – Sis and me. And since no one in our family sews, we can scratch off “sewing room”. Thus if we were to follow Uncle Johnny and Aunt Beth’s naming system, we’d have a “girl room” and a “man room”. One will become fully vacant by June (I get the apartment on the 20th, but there is no way in hell that I am moving everything at once), and the other room will be vacant in August when Sis moves to Chicago with Chris, with whom she is engaged to be engaged.
So I’ve asked my parents what they’re going to do with all their newfound space. They don’t know yet. I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet that they’re getting the house back. Of course, it still hasn’t completely sunk in for me that I’m moving to Wheaton, Maryland very soon and am starting a new job in Washington DC in twelve days. I still have a lot of stuff to go through and see what comes with me to Wheaton, and what stuff I’m going to chuck.
I know one thing, though – my present bed is staying in Stuarts Draft. We bought that bed from Ozark Furniture in Rogers, Arkansas way back in 1988. That’s 19 years in that bed. I’ve been sleeping in that bed since I was in first grade. Mom and I are going to Ikea at Potomac Mills on Saturday (another DC trip, pushing the Katie trip to #96) to pick out what I call my “Big Boy Bed”. It’s going to probably be a queen size bed, and all for me. A really big bed just for me. I love the idea. No wife, no girlfriend, just me. A really big bed all for me.
We’ll probably also look at other possible furniture while I’m at it, since I lack quite a number of pieces of furniture that any good home should have. I do, however, have a kitchen table, and I love it to death. It’s the one we used to have downstairs before Mom inherited Grandma’s old table when she died. That old table is built like a rock. That’s going in the “ranch room” that comes with the apartment.
And of course, with filling up the apartment comes clearing out the bedroom where I’ve hung my hat for almost fifteen years. And I know that one of my parents’ first acts will be to rip out the carpet, since it’s kind of old and kind of matted.
They’ve spoken about putting their treadmill in there, but other than that, I don’t know what their plans are.
Song: "There's nobody quite like you, Muffy" from Today's Special
Quote: And before the room becomes the girl room or the man room, the man in it right now has got to clear out of it, which is a scary task...