The Shell Game

It’s quite difficult to consider breaking a long family tradition, if you’re a member of my family. I thought I might be the end of the line because there’s barely anybody left, but my daughter seems determined to have traditions. She doesn’t have any children, though, so she really will be the end of the line. Rather sad, because I come from a long line of sentimentalists. Everything comes to an end, eventually.

My point here is to stress that there are two types of traditions. One is often the holiday, birthday, or wedding type, where people do and say the same things year after year. They sing the same songs, eat the same food. Those are good traditions, reaffirming ones, memory keepers. 

The other type of tradition is what we might call the ‘safe place’ tradition, which could be more like a habit. You just keep doing or saying something without knowing why. It’s automatic. This type could also be a behavior one learns. Women and the elderly, for examples, know a lot about that process. They learn to fit in or not be seen at the wrong time.

My daughter wants to carry on the first type of tradition. I am glad. I am sad, however, that she will have absolutely nobody to whom she can pass the things she has inherited. I, on the other hand, am determined to break with the tradition that grows out of fear, the one that makes you sit back and take what they give you.

You see, I am crawling into a shell. It’s kind of like in the novel by Kafka, I’m sure you know it? The Metamorphosis. Gregor Samsa begins to transform into an ungeheures Ungeziefer, a monstrous vermin. (N.B. The English translation calls the protagonist a cockroach, but that’s not accurate.)

How many people actually choose to crawl into a shell? Gregor, for one. Then there’s my mother, number two. And there’s me, but I am not resigned to assuming the role of number three. It is not easy, I confess, not easy. Shells are not that hard to come by. My mother didn’t have a red cent, yet she grew a great shell for herself, a very effective one. Like a bunker or air raid shelter, I think.

I am crawling now toward my own shell, but am going kicking and screaming. I am fighting tooth and nail not to go, every inch of the way. I am not going to end up as an insect, even thought right now I am definitely fighting not to crawl. I am not wanting to be Kafkaesque Gregor the Cockroach, no matter how famous he is. He grosses everybody out. I am hoping for something better.

Today I reject the shell that was the tradition my mother taught me, to retreat from everybody and nod my head. She taught me starting about the time ‘they’ began to take over her house. They were nameless, but I kind of suspected who some of them were. Mom never went into detail, but her facial expression, along with her posture, got sadder and sadder. She slumped so much it broke my heart.

Finally I figured it out. My mother could only live in her home if she had a protective shell. It was strong as steel, but it was a fragment of the whole. The ones who had been taking over the house? They were truly inhuman, don’t you think? I was torn apart when snatches of that process reached me, far-away, naïve me. It was also incredible that my mother-with-a-backbone on many occasions throughout her life, was giving in to the monstrous vermin. (Role switch.)

So here’s the situation:

Lesson learned, I knew I would never let myself retreat from life like my mother had done. I would never let people steal things from me and pawn them. I certainly would never pretend I didn’t know they were organizing a coup. Didn’t know they thought they would inherit, set up a weed plantation and welfare scam, and live happily ever after. In the house I was supposed to inherit, in bad shape but full of childhood memories that did not involve psychotropic substances and scams.

Even knowing my mother’s shell tradition, that still didn’t mean I would refuse to help someone out. The economy’s pretty bad, as we all know. The empty nest syndrome isn’t so widespread now. Children settle in with parents for the very long haul. The problem arises when some of the children aren’t one’s own.

Maybe I didn’t think things through very well, because what happened a generation earlier is happening again. The house I live in and still pay a mortgage on and taxes and utilities and upkeep, etc.etc. is slipping away. It feels like it’s my mother’s house or I’m my mother and they are all here, uninvited and unwanted.

Today is going to be different. Either I turn my back on the tortoise option and speak up or look inward, with the result that my bedroom will become my castle. Since the latter choice would be lethal, the decision is clear: I reject that tradition of self-isolation and begin to take back my house. Just a bit of clarification first.

They came after asking if they could and being answered in the affirmative. That is true and part of the problem. They have stayed. Sometimes I set a move date. Sometimes they did. Those dates came and went.There have also been a few direct requests: It’s time for you to leave. Or, when are you moving? Or, Get out!

They still will not leave. I even offered to move out. Sometimes I screeched that I wanted to live alone. A couple of times I even tried to play good cop and ordered pizza for everybody. (You catch more flies with honey, right?) They look at me and say nothing, pretty much. We all know that when somebody doesn’t have an argument to support a case, that person clams up and stares. That happens here.

Since I am actually not a violent person (everybody says that nowadays, but in my case it’s true), I knew help was required. It’s a hard topic to search for on the internet, but finally some things popped up with the phrase “unwanted longtime houseguests who think they’re permanent residents at your address.” After discarding any and everything even remotely aggressive or dangerous, I happened upon the perfect thing.

I found House Haunt Kits online. More variety than I’d have expected. The situation must be fairly common. Maybe people don’t like to talk about it or are in denial?

Prices varied considerably and ratings were all over the map, but at last one seemed to fit the bill. It was marketed as the “surefire way to get rid of pests: spook them out.” Pretty much what they all said, but I thought the branding phrase was rather clever and decided to give that product a try. Its price was midrange. It arrived in three days, which was all I could bear to wait. My situation was desperate.

The first thing you need to know is that a house haunt kit is is not about ghosts and goblins. That would be the case if it were called, say. ‘haunted house kit’ or ‘turn your home into a haunted house’. The kit I ordered came with all of my choices, which I’d entered on a very professional website, but I had to sign an agreement never to reveal the exact contents. There were also very detailed instructions as to how to utilize the contents. The format was similar to a manuel that could be accessed online with a special code. That was part of the control the kit company had over customers.

Let me at least give you an idea of how the application of the kit’s content turned out in my case. Please note that the methods or ingredients are listed according to the five senses. Such a genius way to conceive a product! Purchasers like me had choices in all five categories, a bit like the sections of a menu. It was fun choosing.

I started with the sense of sight, because I’m partial to colors and am an amateur artist, in fact. That’s how I chose a pretty way to start, you might say. Without revealing how I am directly responsible for bringing it about, the water started to come out of the spigot in three different colors in three different rooms - kitchen, bathroom #1 and bathroom #2. 

The kitchen water was blue, beautiful cobalt blue. It matched my handblown glasses from Mexico. Bathroom #1 had water that was a nice rich teal to match the walls. Bathroom #2 produced water that was almost a fluorescent yellow, or school bus yellow. None of the three colors would be comparable to water that was contaminated or full of rust or anything like that. I took all that into consideration before choosing. Plus, these are opaque colors, so it really looks like somebody is opening a tube of acrylic paint. A bit unnerving, and hardly drinkable.

Next, we’ll move on to the sense of hearing. Wahjadoonhir is the technique I selected for it. They hear a tiny squeak when walking on certain boards, and can only catch this four-syllable word: Wahjadoonhir. They’re afraid to say anything because they’ll sound crazy, but I know they hear Wahjadoonhir because at those precise spots they hesitate, or sometimes try to avoid the boards. 

Oh, the sense of smell is fun to work with, but it’s tricky. For scents, I had a choice of up to five. Believe me, it’s not like choosing body wash, essential oils, or mouthwash. Those fragrances wouldn’t have any strong effect. It would be easy to distribute them around the house and have them be taken as air fresheners.

I had chosen cinnamon, rubbing alcohol, vinegar, mustard, and potting soil. Then I decided cinnamon wasn’t so useful and substituted turmeric. If you haven’t smelled either fresh powdered turmeric or the raw root that looks like ginger, then you’ll have trouble identifying it. It smells sketchy. I could not choose smoke because they might call the fire department if they smelled it. No flower scents would create confusion, because of all the flowery and fruity beauty and cleaning products in homes. Ho-hum. No cause to question that. The smells needed to be unnerving.

Oh, I almost forgot to explain that the scents would appear in randomized order, like a continuous loop of olfactory images, you might say. They also appeared in random areas of the house. Look at my selections in the previous paragraph. Some of them are just gross when in the wrong room.

I struggled with the sense of taste because things get associated with poisons very easily. Air flavors seemed to be a safer methods. It is a little hard to explain, but air flavors are just that: when you open your mouth to talk or you breathe in air, you taste it. Yes, this is slightly similar to the scents but not the same. I picked: soap (Ivory), sugar (you get both brown and white option, two for the price of one), and peanut butter. They threw in chipotle as a freebie. Have you ever tried peanut butter-flavored air? Not good.

Tactile capacity or the sense of touch was also a challenge. I opted to have soft surfaces switch with hard in the house. Here are some of my creations: the sofa vs. kitchen counters were switched. The bed vs. the floors were switched. This made it a challenge to set a freshly-made cup of coffee on the counter and finding a comfortable spot on the sofa impossible. The bed/floor switcheroo had them tossing and turning in bed until they ended up trying to snooze on the soft floor that felt like a tempur-pedic mattress.

Before you start being concerned about my comfort, please let me assure you I am fine. The creator of the kit has insured that the owner (me, in this case) also has received instructions on how not to experience the same things as his or her houseguests, because, well, yeah… that would be rather uncomfortable, don’t you think? Entirely defeats the purpose. You all don’t know how this can be managed, and I’m not at liberty to explain it, but the instructions provide immunity from the assaults - oh, that sounds so aggressive - on the senses of the unwanted guests. Right, freeloaders, in some cases. Maybe lots of cases.

I will spare you the examples of the results, because that would require a lot more time and I don’t get any pleasure, really, out of deceiving people or making fun of their discomfort. Do know that the expressions on all the faces covered every part of the spectrum: surprise, shock, anger/rage, confusion, panic. More, even.

These results, really, have been successful in helping me move toward my goal which is to avoid going into a shell like my mother did. That’s why I am totally honest when I say I am almost there, have almost reached that goal. However, I think I need to upgrade my kit to supreme to take me over the top. I only had premium because it was going to be a trial. The next level up gives access to all the information and methods I currently have, plus five more. 

Now I can also turn on controls to, among other things: the ability to regulate the temperature anywhere under this roof without touching the thermostat or turning on a fan; the capacity to make essential home items disappear - like towels, toilet paper, Mr. Clean, ibuprofen; the ability to have appliances appear to be broken, although later they start working again, hopefully long after they were needed. 

The last two options I get with the upgrade of the house haunt kit are going to be of my own design. That is what really gives me the utmost confidence that the kit is going to save me from the shell and thus help me break the tradition passed down to me by my dear mother. I loved her dearly, but this tradition of hers I did not and do not need.

One of these additional methods will do the trick, for sure! (Sorry, Mom.)