The Darwin Exception

 

Malone is an odd little town. It encompasses all the beauty and splendor of any quaint New England village, with the tall old buildings with wonderful old architecture lining Main Street, the bucolic town square at "Arsenal Green", complete with the requisite cannon, and the lazy river flowing under the bridge that greets visitors to the downtown area.

Malone is divided into two sections, the "town", which is composed of sprawling family farms with large dairy barns and acres and fields of corn and hay, and the "village", which is a more densely populated area, but still allows for most houses to have a detached two story garage, or "carriage house",  reminding one that most residents once owned horse and buggy's.

At first glance, Malone looks very serene, peaceful and idyllic. It is only upon closer inspection that one would notice that despite the beauty of the tall old Victorian shops on Main Street, with their high peaked roofs and ornate design, all the buildings have "For Sale" signs on them, and that Main Street is sorely lacking in actual businesses that are still open. One can look closely at the storefronts to see the faint shadows of long ago signs identifying the businesses that were once contained within, reminders that at one time this might have been a thriving metropolis.

Judging by the mansions that line Park Street and Elm Street, and the grand hotel that overlooks the Salmon River, there must have once been an economy strong enough to support the community, but whatever trade once was here has long since left. Now he largest employers in the area are the three Correctional Facilities within the small village, the 5 "dollar stores" and the three "Rent to Own" establishments. Because no one likes depression, economic hardship, and the plight of the un-creditworthy like a "Rent to Own" establishment.

But the lack of businesses is in no way a reflection on Malone itself, which has much to offer in the way of locations, low tax base and ready access to nearby larger cities. The lack of businesses must rest squarely on the shoulders of the Malone residents themselves, who all seem to have a single trait in common - that of "aversion to work".

No one in Malone works, no one. Everyone is either on SSI Disability - with one of those "not readily apparent" disabilities that makes you look at them funny when they park in the handicapped spots, like "I'm Nervous". Or they draw perpetual unemployment because they had a job once a long time ago for three months, or, the favorite in Malone, they are on Welfare. Sometimes due to their own young children still at home, or, more commonly, due to the grandchildren they encourage their teenage daughters to spawn once their own reproductive abilities have passed.

Businesses can not thrive in an area with no ready workforce. Any business that comes to Malone has to rely on employees who come from outside the area, and employees who come from neighboring towns require a higher wage to make it worth their while to travel here. As a result of the higher wages they are forced to pay, the cost of the businesses goods and services must rise, and the local consumer, especially those relying on government assistance as an income, cannot pay the higher price, so the business fails. Thus, another beautiful, yet empty, building on Main Street.

But this does not mean that Main Street is a ghost town, or lifeless. At any time of the day you can walk downtown and see pregnant teenage mothers strolling their children up and down the streets. Most on Welfare, most living at home with their mothers and siblings, happily reproducing to ensure a monthly income "for the family". It's a way of life.

                                      

 

This is my husband 

His name is Paul.

He is a biker sort of guy, large, intimidating looking, and although he looks mean, and would like everyone to think he's mean, he really isn't. He is, though, quite a strange sort of guy. He likes to collect strange things. Like skulls, snakes, Nazi and German paraphernalia, Rebel crap, KKK crap, anything that could be considered "shocking" to a normal person.

And he has this parachute. More on that later when it stops raining (or snowing) and I can take a good picture of it.

But for now, I'll relate my favorite story about Paul - wherein he gets a concussion from a Big Mac.

So hubby has this very strange habit of eating while lying down. I think
it's a holdover from his days of being breastfed (so keep that in mind when
you are breastfeeding your kids while lying down). It's some weird "comfort" thing he has - if he can't sleep, he'll go to the fridge, grab something to  eat and then lay down and eat himself to sleep (I told you he was a stupid fuck).
 

So, hubby comes home late from work one day (and this happened quite a while ago - we were still in Florida, in fact), and on his way home he had stopped and picked up a couple of Big Macs, eaten one on the way home and saved one for "later." So, he's home, watching TV, laying on the couch, and, of  course, to "relax", he decides to go get his extra Big Mac and eat that while lying on the couch.
 

I'm sitting on the end of the couch, muttering under my breath about how I should just take my tit out and breastfeed the weirdo, when all of a sudden,
hubby starts flailing his arms around wildly and trying to sit up. I look over and wonder "What the fuck is he doing now? Looking for fries?" Hubby
starts performing some kind of weird CPR on himself, punching on his chest with his closed fist, all the while his eyes are bugging out of his head and
his lips are turning a little blue. I suddenly think to myself "Hey! I think  the stupid fuck has some special sauce sliding down the wrong hole!" (Then I
laugh because that's a kind of funny double entendre if you think about  it.). So I'm laughing at the joke I told myself (ok, and him - a little bit)
and hubby is still wildly beating on his chest and trying to sit up.
 

Suddenly he catches his breath with this *huge* special effect movie "I've come back to life!" kind of intake of air, and starts coughing. (And this is
where the concussion comes in to play). He's coughing and coughing, hacking  and spitting, (he says "violently coughing") for like a full minute.
Finally, he starts breathing normally and he grabs his head with both of his  hands and says "Oh man, I have a terrible headache!" I say ":Yeah, I've told  you about eating when you are laying down - don't do it!" He says "No! I  mean it! It just came on - it's like a migraine - I think I have a
concussion!" I say "A concussion?? How the fuck do you think you got a  concussion? Do you know what a concussion *is*? What, did someone beat you  over the fucking head before they gave you the Big Mac? You don't have a concussion."
 

Hubby insists that yes, he indeed *does* have a concussion, and he got it from "violently coughing". See, he coughed *so* hard that he slammed his
brain around in his head, causing him a concussion. I tell him "Ok, here's  what you do - go to bed and go to sleep. If I can't wake you up in the
morning, I'll concede that you do, indeed, have a concussion, kay?"
 

Hubby, though, is having none of this. He insists that I need to drive him to the emergency room *right away* because concussions can be really, really  dangerous if left untreated. He says "I could slip into a coma at any moment - and *then* what would you do?" I tell him "Well, I'm thinking I
*might* finish that Big Mac."
 

So, finally, hubby breaks me down with his constant and relentless insistence that he's on death's door, and that I *really* need to drive him
to the emergency room, before he like, up and fucking dies right there in the living room from this untreated concussion he has, and I finally agree
to do so, just to shut his ass up. All the while we are driving there, though, I am telling him that there is no way in *hell* that I am walking up
to that triage nurse and telling her that hubby has a concussion from eating a Big Mac, and that this is something he is going to have to do on his own.
He says he has *no* problem doing this, because he is quite certain of his  diagnosis, and he's utterly convinced that all the brain specialists they
are going to call in for his dire condition are going to agree with him once they have him hooked up to those EEG machines.
 

So, we finally reach the emergency room, and hubby tells me to go get a wheelchair, and after 5 minutes of arguing in the parking lot because I
refuse to do so, he somehow manages to walk under his own power to the big  double wide ER doors and he's able to somehow make it to the desk of the triage nurse.
 

I follow along - with enough distance between us so that I can disavow knowing the idiot, but close enough to hear what he tells the nurse. He gets
to the desk and says "I think I have a concussion."
 

Nurse: You have a concussion? Were you hit on the head?
Hubby: No, I was violently coughing.
Nurse: Do you have a cold?
Hubby: No, I was choking and when I caught my breath I started coughing violently.
Nurse: Did you hit your head while you were coughing? Did you lose consciousness?
Hubby: No, I was just coughing violently, and I think when I was coughing I slammed my brain against the back of my skull.
 

Now the nurse starts to smile a little, and I can tell she's trying really, really hard not to laugh. And I start to wonder if the ER has cameras to
record these kinds of things, you know, so that they can all sit around and laugh at them later. I mean, who wouldn't want a tape of the guy who comes in with the "gerbil up the butt" story, or the one who has an orange penis after he was eating Cheeto's and watching porn - or the guy who got a
concussion from a Big Mac? "Best of ER", you know? Hey, I'd buy the DVD. Or at least put it in my NetFlix queue.
 

So I can tell that hubby is getting a little bit pissed off that the nurse seems to be taking him about as seriously as I did. He finally says to her
"I just need to see a doctor!" She gets up and says "Well, go have a seat sir, and I'll find someone."
 

Now, I know she just had to get up and leave because she couldn't hold in the laughter much longer and she didn't want to laugh in his face. I mean,
she never even asked for an insurance card. In fact, she hadn't even asked hubby his name yet - but she was going to go "find someone?" Yeah, she was going to go looking for the AV guy and make sure the cameras were running, that's the only "someone" she was finding.
 

So hubby goes and sits down in the waiting area, and I follow him and sit across from him (again, don't want to be perceived as "the woman with the
kook" - especially on camera). I'm trying hard not to laugh, and I say to hubby "So, are they paging the brain specialist?" Hubby looks at me like
I'm, like, *sympathizing* with him or something, and says "I don't think she *believes* me!" I just look at him incredulously and say "No! She *doesn't*? That bitch! Did you tell her how you were *violently* coughing?" And hubby - all serious like - says "Yes! Of course I did!" And I said "Well, Goddamned, I just don't get it! Maybe it's just this small town hospital - maybe we should have driven to Sarasota." Hubby says - again, all fucking *serious* like, as if I'm *not* being sarcastic in the least (and he *really* should know better - I blame it on the concussion) "Do you really think we should have?" I look at him and say "No You Idiot! I can't even believe you got me to drive you *here*! You don't have a fucking concussion! But I *am* beginning to think you suffered *some* kind of brain damage!"
 

Finally, after about 15 minutes or so of waiting hubby suddenly declares that he thinks his "concussion" may have lessened in severity - somewhere
during the period of driving to the hospital, arguing in the parking lot, explaining his dire condition to the nurse, and now waiting in the waiting
room the pain has subsided considerably. I say "Good! Let's Go!" and he says that, well, first he has to make sure that the hospital isn't going to
charge him for the visit, and this is when I break it to him that I *really* don't think they went to call a brain specialist, and I ask him "Hon - did
they even ask you your *name*?" Once he realizes that no, they didn't, and that they really can't charge him without it, we leave and go back home.
 

On the way home we stopped and got Quarter Pounders. Hubby swore off Big Macs. He hasn't eaten another one since. But he still *insists* he got a concussion from "violently coughing".
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really thought I had a dead lady next door. .

The house was empty for some time, with a for sale sign on it. It finally sold, supposedly to someone "from the city".

It sat empty for several months after it sold, until one day a lady comes walking down the street with 2 garbage bags in her hands. She goes to the
house, opens the door and walks in.

We don't see her for several days.

Then the woman next door walks up the street, sans garbage bags, and we see her several hours later getting out of a taxi with several boxes. She takes them in the house and we don't see her for several days. My husband thinks she may just be some homeless person who noticed an empty house, and he asks the old lady across the street "What's up with this lady?"

The old lady across the street says the woman had asked her the day before 'Where is the dump? I need to go to the dump". The lady across the street had told her it was way across town and she couldn't walk there. The lady across the street said the woman sounded "foreign", and that she gave the impression she was "hiding". I don't know why the old lady got that impression, but she said she did.

Next sighting of the lady next door was a week later when she was out on her lawn cutting it with a pair of scissors. She did a fair patch in front of
the door before stopping.

There were hardly ever any lights on in the house, the lady across the street said she saw a light one time in the living room, and never saw them
on again, even at night, and the lady next door never brought in more than the two garbage bags and the boxes she brought via the cab. I never saw her bring any groceries in, and although she put some makeshift curtains up in a few of the windows, although they do sag in the middle. I never saw any furniture moved in.

We didn't notice her leave again. But no one had seen any signs of her for two months. The old lady across the street was asking me if I had seen her
at all, and I said "Nope, not since she was scissoring the lawn." The mailman said that she had asked for her mail to go to the post office, but
she hadn't been around to retrieve it in at least 6 weeks. And the mailman said "She's got some bills piling up there."

It seemed odd to me that the little patch of grass she had scissored down was now growing wild again - why go to all that trouble if you don't plan on
being there? And why have your mail held at the post office if you don't go and get it? If she is safely somewhere else, why not forward it? And she
must have had the lights turned on, but if she hasn't picked the bill up in 2 months - aren't they going to get shut off? The windows are full of that
"condensation" that builds up when it's cold, that stuff is going to freeze soon.

Since she has to walk past the side of my house to get in or leave, the dogs always bark whenever anyone comes and goes down that driveway. That's how I was always alerted to her comings and goings. The dogs haven't barked over there for quite a while, so I know she's not just slipping past when I'm not seeing her.

I truly thought she was dead in there. I hate being a "nosy neighbor", and really I don't give a rat's ass if she's dead or anything, it's just that I prefer not to have a dead lady next door to my house, what with Halloween coming and all. That just seems creepy.
 

So, I bite the bullet and call the cops.

There is no dead lady.

Malone's finest came out and took a look around. They looked around the house, and I mean *all* around the house, tried both doors
to see if they were unlocked, and finally took the screen off the window and the (taller) cop crawled in the window. I don't know why, but for a moment I lost my head and volunteered to go in the window for them, using the obvious fact that I was smaller than either of them. Then I was  reminded that I probably *didn't* want to go in the window and find the dead lady. So I quickly rescinded my offer.

The taller cop went in the window, and came to the front door to the let the shorter cop in. Somewhere between the window and the door he also flipped on the outside light.

When he got to the front door he said to the shorter cop, "Looks like an abandoned house." I said "But abandoned houses don't have *curtains*!" and the shorter cop said "Or electricity!" and the taller cop said "How do you know there's electricity?" and the shorter cop said "Because you flipped on the light". Hey, these are *Malone* cops.

The creepiest, oddest weirdest thing was when the taller cop came around the side of the house to inform the shorter cop that the curtains were hung with *vines*!  And the vines grew for a while, covering the windows, then died, leaving just dead leaves covering the windows. It's very creepy
looking.

But, anyway, there is no dead lady. They checked all over the house, they even went down the outside bulkhead thing to check the basement. No dead lady. They did agree with me that the whole situation was rather odd - especially the vine thing - they *really* thought that was weird. I
apologized for being the crazy nosey neighbor, thanked them for checking and they left.

So now there is a new mystery. Where is the formerly dead lady next door? And how did she hang the curtains with vines. And why?

When you buy a house for $9,000, you can expect a few things to be wrong with it. Our house didn't really have any major defects, but for some reason I lost my head and decided, even before we moved in, that we would do a "whole house" remodel. While we were living there.

This has proven to be a really, really dumb idea.

Everything was going along swimmingly while the contractor was here, demolishing the entire interior of the house, hanging drywall, wiring, plumbing, and making the house all new and shiny. We installed an entire new bathroom, all new kitchen, all new floors and ceilings, and stripped down the hardwood floors. So, everything was fine until the contractor got a little greedy, decided to take an advance on his draw, and then never showed up again. So is the way of Malone.

Hubby decided that we were far enough along in the process that we didn't really need to hire another contractor (even if we could find one in Malone), and that everything that was left to do, he could handle. This is where the fact that he's really lazy tends to make a difference. Sure, he'll do it. Someday. Maybe. So, I have a kitchen that is really nice, with all new cupboards, all new floor and counters, all new hardware and curtains and a new custom kitchen island. But there is no running water in the sink, and the gap between the cupboards isn't faced yet with the matching panels, and the top trim isn't on the cupboards. If those things were done, well, it would be perfect. But hubby has to "think about" how he is going to hang the trim, and he has to "figure out" how he wants to put in the drain for the sink, and he has to "decide" exactly how wide to make the facing for the cupboards. He's been "thinking" and "deciding" and "figuring out" for a year, so any day now I should have running water in the sink.

The plumbing is the same as the counters. For 6 months hubby sat and looked at the countertops that needed to be cut to size and cut out for the sink and installed. Hubby "figured" and "measured" and "decided" and "thought" the whole time about how it should be done, how it could best be done, and how it needed to be done, without ever actually *getting* it done. I called every place in the phone book from here to Vermont trying to find someone qualified to cut them and install them, and couldn't find anyone. Finally, one day hubby had a friend over who suggested that hubby just take that shiny new plasma cutter hubby just *had* to have and cut the counters with that. Hubby finally took the plunge and 10 minutes later the counters were cut and installed. It took longer to get the plasma cutter out of the box than it took to cut and install the countertops. After 6 months of looking at the damned things.

My problem is that I "work around", and "make do". I run up and down the stairs to the bathroom and back to wash dishes and get water for cooking and anything else I need in the kitchen, and as long as I "work around" and "make do", hubby thinks it's "ok for now", and the task drops on the "priority" list. If I had never started cooking in the kitchen and insisted that I wasn't going to until there was running water, getting the plumbing finished would have never dropped down on the "priority" list. So really, it's my own fault.

The kitchen - Before, During and After the Remodel. Still with no running water in the kitchen sink.

             

 

 

 

 

OK, I know what you're thinking. Well, besides "This woman is crazy" , you're thinking "Kim, if this place is so bad that you have to start a Blog on the internet in order to have a place to vent - well WHY DO YOU STAY?"

OK, fair question.

Why I stay is linked to "How I got Here" - so let's take a look at this.

 

 

This is our house. Ok house. Needs some work. But how much would this house sell for if it was sitting next door to you? I know if it was sitting on our property in Florida, I could get maybe $65K for it. If it was sitting on the land we sold in Vermont before moving to the "beautiful" foothills of the Adirondacks, I could have gotten $100K for it. But here, in lovely Malone New York, for this 4 bedroom, two story, two porches home *with* a Harley Barn, *and* an extra lot - we paid Nine Thousand Dollars for this house. Yup. $9,000. Cash. And the taxes are less than $1,000 a year.

This is the survey of our property. We own all the land in the "T" shape. The back half is all wooded. Already we have cleared out some of the fallen and dead trees and sold them as firewood, recouping about half of the $9K we paid for the house.

 

So that's one reason I am here. well, the biggest reason, I guess. A nine thousand dollar house.

And it's close to Vermont. We are about 1.5 hours from the bridge to Vermont, which is close enough to go and see my family when I want to, but far enough away where "drop ins" and lending money to them is difficult. When you have siblings such as mine, this is an important factor. More about them later, in some other post.

And hubby likes the mountains. He's a Harley guy, and up until we moved here from Florida, he had never driven in mountainous areas before. He likes it. Of course, he doesn't like the fact that he can only ride two months out of the year comfortably, but he likes the mountains. These are hubby's Harleys:

I ride once in a while with hubby, but not very often. I don't get the whole "lifestyle" he seems to think is inherent in owning a bike and riding off to different "rally's", "meets" and "runs". I don't see it. But, he doesn't get some of my interests, either, so it all works out, I guess.

But now you know why I stay. It may not be a great reason, but it's a reason. $9,000 houses just aren't that common - at least outside of Malone, New York.