The Slice: Your home is where her heart is

Today, offered as a cautionary tale, The Slice presents the transcript of an interview with a suspiciously anonymous Spokane-area woman who keeps falling in love with other people’s houses.

You won’t believe what she had to say.

Q. So do you develop a crush on a place only after you have been inside and gotten to look around?

A. Oh, no. Most of the time, I’ve never set foot inside. I guess it makes me sound shallow, but I usually fall for a place based on the looks of the exterior.

Q. But maybe the closet space and kitchen are awful. Ever consider that?

A. Not really. The whole thing about this is that it’s fantasy. I see a place and something about it makes me decide that my family would be skipping-and-singing happy there.

Q. What’s wrong with where you live now?

A. Oh, nothing major. The usual stuff. I don’t hate where we are now. It’s just that every once in a while I see some place that looks like total Snugsville and it’s hard for me to resist imagining what it would be like.

Q. What it would be like?

A. Oh, you know. Instead of stained T-shirts, beer bottles, mumbling and certain people never getting up from the couch to take out the trash, I imagine lively conversations, zero clutter, great parties, polite kids, zesty salads, nobody grumbling about the bills, and me being a few pounds lighter.

Q. Doesn’t that seem like a lot to ask from a house?

A. Sure. But as I said, this is fantasy. I realize that if I actually went in some of these places I might encounter “Jetsons” color schemes, funky smells, mystery cracks, creaking floors and a nightmarish bathroom situation.

Q. But wouldn’t that be sort of healthy, to know that your visions might be pure fairy tales?

A. Look, I already have all the reality I can handle. The thing about seeing a cute house and picturing myself being magically happy there is that it reminds me that I used to have dreams.

Q. And now?

A. I have real life. It’s fine. It’s good. But it’s not skipping and singing.

Today’s Slice question: If suddenly you were the only person of your gender remaining on Earth, what person of the opposite sex would you summon to be your starter companion?