SK and I went to stay at the farm house not long ago, because we had a funeral in the area. It was a sad reason to visit, but I hadn’t been up to that house for a while. It’s a small farmhouse on five acres in northern Wisconsin, on the other side of Lake Superior from where I grew up. I love that Lake Superior forest vibe. The house itself was originally SK’s grandparents’ place, the house his mom grew up in. He bought it from his parents some 25-30 years ago. I asked her once how on earth her parents managed to have ten kids in that tiny place: SK’s mom laughed and said by the time she came along the older kids had moved out.
Anyway. The basement actually came along after the house. There’s a wonderful family story about Grandma Ida working in the kitchen while the uncles rolled the house on top of the newly dug basement. Therefore, the basement door is outside, next to the door into the house. And that, my friends, is where the horror show begins.
First, you may recall one of the twins and I have an ongoing hitchhiking chicken game, where one of us will hide said chicken in the other’s room, stuff, or (most importantly) suitcase. Chick’n has been to Florida with me on more than one occasion. I believe we found Chick’n’s sibling torn apart in the yard at the farm (which explains where it came from in the first place…likely a family reunion game prize). Poor Chick’n 2.
A few years ago, SK brought me to the farm as a long weekend date thing. This was before we were engaged: maybe he was revealing the full extent of the family’s quirks in advance, I don’t know. But one key to the farm is, while the electricity and heat stay turned on all the time, the water heater does not. So upon arrival, someone has to go into the basement and make sure the water heater is on. The first time I descended those steps, I pointed out that a serial killer would absolutely say this isn’t a SK basement…
SK maintains he truly has no idea why the hell there’s a chair in the root cellar (which, by the way, has sort of flimsy wooden walls that wouldn’t be difficult to escape. So just in case any LEOs read this and flag it: this is funny, not actually scary). The last farm party/family reunion was a few years ago, and there were a LOT of people running all over the property. I suspect hide and seek, since that’s a perfect hiding place. There were no bodies (not even wayward rodents, which I would expect in what has become a not-lived-in vacation house).
Clearly I married the right person: look at all that writing fodder from a single overnight trip. Mwahahahaha.
No Pithy Phrase 