My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [3]
“Something like that,” I admit. “Although technically this isn’t The Real World, which I totally don’t even watch anymore. This is The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, a whole different beast. This isn’t a reality show. This is a game show. Big difference.” I unpause the program.
Fletch stands up and starts pacing in the limited space between me and the television. Every time he veers left, I veer right to make sure I don’t miss any of the action. “But what’s the deal? How can you possibly be invested in these idiots’ lives? How is it they can always run off to some desert island to play tug-of-war? I mean, do they have jobs? Or bosses? Do they go to an office every day? Or are they professional reality show contestants? Are they all trapped in a state of perpetual adolescence? Does MTV cryogenically freeze them between appearances, or do they actually have lives with mortgages and husbands and wives and stuff ?”
“They’re usually not married because that way they can all hook up with each other once they get there.” Then I reflect on other Real World/ Road Rules Challenges for a moment. “A lot of times, though, they have boyfriends and girlfriends who they end up cheating on, like the first night, so that just adds to the drama.”
He curls his lip in disgust. “Pathetic.”
I give him a playful shove. “Oh, lighten up, Francis.5 And besides, I’m only watching because I’m traumatized, and you can’t argue with that.”
To backtrack: a couple of months ago, we installed a home gym in our basement to supplement my ongoing fitness efforts. Because our rental house is more than a hundred years old, the entrance to the basement is a bit of a squeeze. You have to go down four steps and then duck as you walk under the far corner of the house before you can enter the wee little Alice in Wonderland door.
Bringing the boxes of exercise equipment in whole was impossible, so the deliverymen had to spend a solid hour disassembling the components in our garage and carrying them in, little by little. Once inside, the men had to navigate all the random floor joists scattered throughout the basement6 while avoiding hitting their heads on the low ceiling beams. Every ten minutes we’d hear a loud metallic clang preceding an “Ooof!” and followed by what I assume was the world’s longest string of Polish profanity.
Once they got the components inside, they had to reassemble the equipment in the spots I’d marked with tape. We had to place each item precisely between ceiling beams, or else we’d give ourselves a million concussions every time we used a machine. As it is, Fletch is too tall for the elliptical trainer and he can’t incline the treadmill at all, unless he wants to hunch down. The one time he tried to run on a grade, he got all hunkered over with his back curled and his head jutting out. He looked like a gecko sprinting across the Australian outback.
From start to finish, Operation Home Gym lasted almost five hours. The delivery guys left the basement door propped open the entire time, as I imagine cursing the two Yuppie bastards upstairs is hot work.7
Here’s where things got complicated. Our creepy old neighbors moved out around Christmas, leaving little in their wake save for the few Green Party presidential candidate stickers they couldn’t unstick off the lamppost. When we watched them load up their U-Haul with stuff one normally doesn’t pack—e.g., countertops, cabinet doors, floor tiles—Fletch remarked, “There’s not going to be a wire, toilet seat, or lightbulb left in that place.” They even took all the garbage bags that they’d been using for windowpanes on their back porch, thus giving all the neighborhood rats unfettered access to the indoors.
But then a developer bought the property and began to rehab it, displacing a colony of vermin. I imagine the rat packs standing on their haunches in the backyard, hurling rodent-sized rocks and bottles at the contractors, like tiny