Things that confuse me

I get those moments once in awhile when I find myself obsessing over something that just makes me batty. I don't want to do this, necessarily (although, maybe I do and I just don't know it) so I think maybe writing these "Things that make you go 'Hmmm?'" things out would help me get them out of my head and maybe you'd have ideas about them...or even just find them entertaining.

Here lately, it's home decor choices. Now I'm all for freedom of expression...or even lack of desire to express anything at all, but sometimes you just have to wonder WHY people do what they do. I'm very able to freely admit that my family had basically nothing while I was growing up...we spent a good part of my youth in a 10 x 60 trailer house (you do the math on that...it had two bedrooms the size of postage stamps), so I spent my youth dreaming of getting OUT of rooms covered in horrible pressed wood paneling covered in what would have been photocopy wood, had there been color photocopiers back then. I see the stuff now and I have a visceral reaction...it makes me want to run away screaming and play Barbies all at the same time. But I've always kind of thought, oh well, it was a stamp of our poverty, that's all. No one really chooses to live in that.

But you know, I'm either a very bad judge of about the amount of money some people make or there are some crazy people out there. I'm not saying that I know lots of people who have the exact stuff that was on the walls of our trailer. But my friend Barb recently posted pictures of a house she's buying soon, with strong disclaimers that she's REMOVING the wallpaper, so try to have some imagination! I look at these pictures and I keep thinking about who in the world chooses to take the same ugly little reprinted picture and cover an entire room in it? The house she is buying is neither old (although I'm not sure I give any more credit to someone who did it thirty years ago than I would to someone who did it last summer), nor is it a cheapie one size fits all kind of house, slapped together by someone who didn't give a rat's pa-toot about who might actually have to look at this stuff daily. In fact, as much wallpaper as there is in this joint, it would appear to be a personal preference! Color me...dismayed. Really? This little man chopping wood with his blotchy handlebar moustache is an image you want to look at not only on a daily basis, but in kaleidoscope effect while you are curling your hair and brushing your teeth?

Really. Wow.

Maybe I'm just a bitch, or completely uninformed about the joys of wallpaper, but I really don't understand what would drive a perfectly logical person to go out and spend perfectly good money, time, energy and effort on such a thing. Particularly when Debbie Travis is out there leading the crusade for paint. Listen to Debbie my friends. She knows her stuff.