'Self-Service' Home Renovation

         Before I opened the can of gasoline in my garage and struck a match I thought of the bucket load of bad luck followed by a number of bad decisions that had brought me to this point–     

         To my wife and I our kitchen appliances accurately resembled those June Cleaver had used in Leave It to Beaver in the 50s. The decrepit cabinets had become so dirty and worn it appeared the Three Bears had broken in and ravaged the place after waking up from hibernation and looking for their next three meals.

      When you walked into our bathroom you could swear a tidal wave from the most polluted ocean in the world had struck the house with the force of a nuclear blast.

       Our living room barely fit the definition of a room in which one could live a pleasurable leisure life. It and our dining room desperately both needed “total refreshes” –or “complete gut jobs”—and the same went for our two bedrooms.

    It had gotten so bad that we did not have enough of a home left in which to conduct our daily lives.

     My wife and I had spent the last two years planning to improve our “perennial fixer-upper” as much as our salaries would allow, but now our respective companies had decided to move us right to the top of their downsizing lists.

    “What should we do?”, we asked each other over dinner one evening, “this money trap will not yield enough if we sell to get us a home much better than we have now and I don’t know if we can afford to make the renovations needed to get the home into the condition we need to get the return we need to finance the rest of our lives.”

    Of course, we could opt for renting, but that simply would mean giving what meager funds we had to someone else while getting no ownership rights in return.     

    It seemed like Fate had painted us into a financial corner around which might lurk the spector of homelessness.

    After a number of similar discussions lasting over a number of weeks we saw very few realistic options.

    “I see only one viable choice, although ‘viable’ might not be legal,” I told my wife.

    “What the heck do you mean?”, she asked. “I don’t want to wind up in jail for trying to secure my future.”

      “Maybe we can find a way to procure enough insurance money to bring us the home of our dreams and finance our retirement years without sacrificing our freedom—if we play our cards right. You know that can of gasoline in the garage?”

      “Sounds like you believe our solution lies in comitting arson. That’s known as a felony–and the last time I checked they put people in jail for that.”

     “That’s only if they can prove we did it. We need to be very clever so no one discovers those responsible for destruction of the house. Just need to make it look accidental or pin it on someone else.”

      “Can’t see how you could possibly pull that off.”

        “Just need to do everything as carefully as possible and make sure we keep it top secret. Probably the most effective method would be an “accident” happening when the contractor we recently spoke with takes down our garage.”

        We both lost a lot of sleep for the next month. We signed a contract for the garage demolition but did not allow any of our neighbors to get wind of our plans.

        Everything was set, including legally obtaining all the proper demolition permits from the town building department.

         Two weeks later the contractor started to take down every beat-up board in our backyard eyesore.

            He didn’t realize, however, that the scope of destruction would “expand” far beyond that which he had contracted for and for which we had signed up.

            One dark night, after the contractor wrapped up his work, I snuck into the partially-demolished garage and searched in the dark for the gasoline can from which I had filled my lawnmower every spring. I had refilled it two days before and had hidden it near the garage entrance. 

             We already had conducted a number of garage sales to bring the contents of our home down to a number our neighbors would perceive as movable to a new place of residence. The rest we moved to a storage facility so everyone would think we would pack up our belongings and depart for new digs after we decided in which direction to point our future.

             I had carefully mapped out the “accidental” path of destruction for the fire I planned to set so the flames would spread quickly from the garage into the house. Then I opened the gasoline can cover and struck that match—

           “Poof!” The match went out and I stared in the dark in disbelief. A beautiful, one-bedroom, one-bath guest cottage now stood where the dilapidated garage swayed, ready to collapse, only a few minutes before .

       Suddenly,  I heard rumbling coming from the direction of our basement. When I turned around our rundown hovel had undergone a miraculous transformation–turning into an ultra modern home in a matter of minutes. I sprinted into the house to find a luxurious three-bedroom, three-bath modern, open-look edifice. The kitchen featured the most updated aluminum appliances and a 65-foot brand new television graced a living room with a modern vaulted ceiling.

           My wife and I stood transfixed–we had absolutely no explanation. Could we have entered an alternative universe? Had I sniffed too much of the gasoline when I attempted to light the fire? Maybe it had something to do with the odd-looking, glowing green vehicle I saw turning into our driveway just before I lit the match. Perhaps Fate had now come over to our side and decided we had worked hard enough all our lives to deserve a turnaround–even if our financial picture loomed as gloomy as the torched Cape Cod we thought should now stand in front of us.