I love my home - for the most part.
The living room? Cool. The dining room? Check. The bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen? A-okay.
The crawl space? Not so much. The crawl space, let's just say, is not a place I frequent. I walk into the kitchen, oh, at least 25 times a day. The TV room? A good 15. I walk into the crawl space - make that, crawl into the crawl space - rarely.
Let's just say I've been in the crawl space as much as I've been on the roof. And I've never been on the roof.
There are, I suspect, things that one does not want to bump into in the crawl space. Mice, say.
Cobwebs. Perhaps a ghost or a vampire or two.
Still, there are other things living in the crawl space, things we've been stashing away for as long as we've lived in the house.
What did we do with all those toys that the kids had outgrown, but were too dear to throw away? Tossed them in the crawl space. And the bread maker I'd used just once or twice, but swore I'd use again? Crammed it into the crawl space. Same with the 15 boxes of textbooks I had in university, the ones I decided - for some strange reason - that I might need again.
You know it. Crawl space.
The husband, thank heavens, has visited the crawl space on more than one occasion. He hasn't much liked it, but he's gone there, nonetheless.
"You know," I said the other day. "I think it's time we emptied out the crawl space."
"What?" asked the husband. "I hate the crawl space."
"I know you hate the crawl space," I said. "But at least you're a trooper and go into the crawl space. As you know, I would go into a car wash with the top down before I went into the crawl space. But since we have no idea what's in the crawl space, I think it's fair to say we don't need anything that's in the crawl space - for the most part, anyway."
The husband told me he couldn't go into the crawl space. He was going to the gas station. And then to Tim Hortons. And then to the driving range. And after that, he said, he might go on the roof.
"We should clear it out," I said. "Really. Maybe after you've gone on the roof."
I paused. "Why are you going on the roof, anyway?" I asked.
The husband shrugged. "Might need a sweep," he said. "You never know."
Okay, I thought, there'd be no clearing out today.
We had no desire to meet up with a ghost. But I was starting to crave homemade bread.
