down to the Homeowner Hell. This is a nationwide chain of stores, each of which is approximately the size of Indonesia and is filled with billions and billions of random and obscure hardware objects such as “toggle bolts,” which are packed inside special plastic blister packs, which you cannot open except with special razor knives sold only inside blister packs at Homeowner Hell. It is a comical sight indeed to see hundreds of homeowners peering at these objects with a total lack of comprehension, like fish examining a nuclear submarine. The contractors love to watch this via closed-circuit television from the Parallel Contractor Universe. It is their favorite show.

Chapter 7.Redecorating For Under 650,000 Dollars

The best way to get decorating ideas is to buy several glossy interior design publications such as Architectural Digest (“The International Magazine of Homes Much Nicer Than Yours”) and cull through the articles to obtain useful tips. The main tip you will pick up is that if you want your house to look really nice, you do not necessarily have to have professional training or even a special “flair” for design; all you need is more money than the human mind can comprehend. You will learn this from eight-page color photo spreads featuring homes the size of Baltimore—always called “villas”—situated on dramatic mountain-side real estate accessible to ordinary citizens such as yourself only by telescope. The accompanying articles sound like this:

The owners—he, a prominent industrialist neurosurgeon and president of four major investment firms: she, a bestselling novelist and Queen of Belgium—knew exactly what they wanted when they decided to build the Villa de Mucho Simoleons. “We wanted,” they said, in unison, “the kind of informal and inviting home where we could entertain our friends and, if we felt like it, play polo in the foyer.”

Their design consultants, Wilmington A.



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