These days, for pop culture freaks like myself, the word desperation takes on a somewhat twisted connotation.  You know, the Desperate Housewives clan.  And Carrie Bradshaw’s daily doses of desperation (which amounted, of course, to true love & fab adventures).   And one can’t help but to eagerly anticipate the next sickeningly juicy & desperate ordeal of Britney or Lindsay  or Paris. 

Despite all of this SO-NOT-REAL life desperation, I sometimes forget about the real kind…

I was with my friend looking for a house this weekend.  One of the abodes we walked into was the biggest freaking mess you could ever imagine.  Naturally, her Realtor warned us about the state of it before we stepped in (shoes on).  “It’s a rental.  It’s a disaster.”  My first thought was that the people who lived in this house didn’t actually keep it in such a state.  I’m okay with messy and all that, but this was beyond run-of-the-mill-disaster-area.  Things seemed to be staged in disarray;  it was immediately apparent that these renters didn’t want my friend (or anyone) to buy the house.  Like EVER.  They were (effectively) using a reverse of “if you build it they will come”.  This was a case of “if you disasterize it, they will never buy”. 

And so, we were ready to walk out, and I was shaking my head a bit at the transparency of the whole messy ploy, when my eye caught a notepad that was left right at the top of the stairs.  Handwritten.  Blue pen.  Large script. 

“Again I wake up and there are people looking.  I’m in a panic.  If someone buys this place, I’ll be homeless.  But it’s not me I’m worried about.  It’s my two kids…”   It left off with the ellipses.  And I felt a bit sick to my stomach because I started thinking about how powerless this woman must feel to leave a note like that for strangers to see.  Manipulative, maybe.  Transparent, obviously.  But I felt so horrific for her.  Not that someone might eventually buy the house.  Someone will.  But because to feel that kind of powerless desperation… it’s sad.  If I would have had mine with me, I would have left her my rose colored glasses.   Everyone needs a bit of magic - and lots of power - to replace the other stuff.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 8:34 pm. You can leave a comment below.