There’s an old philosophical saw that says if a butterfly flaps its wings in Mexico, it can lead to a tidal wave in China.
It’s the illustration of the immutable law of cascading consequences. One thing happens, no matter how small, but that thing leads to a bigger thing that results from the impact of the smaller thing. That bigger thing leads to an even bigger thing. Increasingly dramatic result after dramatic result, until you finally have an event of earth-shattering consequence.
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. A shy glance and a nod across a crowded room leads to coffee, which leads to a date, which leads to marriage, which leads to a household of kids, which leads to credit card debt, a mortgage, a second mortgage, and on and on until that nod eventually leads to bankruptcy and suicide.
Well, maybe not always that last part. That glance across the room can also lead to incredible happiness, but it’s a crap shoot. Like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.
Take the day my wife came home from the bed and bath place with two new couch pillows, for example. They cost about $10 each, as I recall.
“Nice pillows,” I said, as she placed them on the couch.
“Yes, they are,” she said. “But now that I get them home, I see they don’t match the upholstery.”
“I can live with it,” I said.
“I can’t,” she said.
And before you could say Bob’s Your Uncle, she had the couch cushions sent out to be reupholstered (about $500), and when we got them back, they darned sure matched the pillows.
But they didn’t match the carpet.
So we got a new carpet ($2,500), which matched the upholstery on the couch and the pillows, but didn’t match the paint on the walls.
Because of that discrepancy, over a long summer weekend, we pressed all the kids into service and painted the entire house to match the pillows, the upholstery and the carpet ($750).
Then it was a new dining room set to match the ambiance we were creating, new appliances in the kitchen, new bedding, a leather recliner, a small sleeper-sofa for her wardrobe room and about a thousand area rugs, all in an Oriental pattern that so far matches everything (I gave up adding the cost).
This week, a new sofa and chair to replace the one we’ve had since the boys were babies will arrive, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m done – with the exception of a few cosmetic projects like remodeling the kitchen and bathroom, installing new siding, slate roof, sod in the backyard and rebuilding the deck.
The law of cascading consequences. A throw pillow leads to the complete remodeling of your home. Weird, huh? And it could have been worse if the housing bubble hadn’t started deflating.
For the last year or so, since it became apparent that my wife and I would soon become empty-nesters, she’s been suggesting that it might be time to sell our comfortable old home and buy something smaller without so many stairs. And we ought to get to selling before one of those experts turns out to be right and the housing bubble pops.
Unlike me, she is not prepared to call it a day when it comes to upheaval in our living environment. She’s already tired of the color of the walls, tired of a lot of our stuff, and she thinks it might be nice to get rid of almost everything, move into an empty house, and start over.
She wants a blank slate. I want to pull the drawbridge up and hibernate for the rest of my natural life. As far as I’m concerned, I moved for the last time when we moved into the house where we currently live. I adore my house. I’m comfortable there. I hate moving, and even talking about it in the abstract gives me hives.
“I like the stairs,” I argued. “In fact, I love stairs. The more stairs, the better. To me, all those stairs at the Lincoln Memorial are a bit of heaven on earth.”
“You didn’t even go up to see Lincoln when we were in Washington because you said there were too many stairs,” she reminded.
“Unhhh … I like our stairs,” I said lamely.
“You’re not getting any younger,” she said. “You might not even be able to walk up and down them in a few years.”
“I’ll crawl,” I said.
“No, you won’t,” she said. “You might as well start getting used to the idea that sooner than later, we’re going to have to sell this house and move into a nice, one-level ranch.”
I dug my heels into the sand and vowed I’d have no part of moving. I wouldn’t discuss it. I wouldn’t go to open houses. If she wanted to move so darned bad, she’d have to find a new house on her own, arrange the move on her own. And when she did all that, she could find a couple of guys in white coats to put me in a straight jacket and take me to our new abode by force, because that was the only way I was leaving.
Despite my stubborn stance, however, I knew it was only a matter of time. As most married guys know, we don’t stand a chance when it comes to arguments like that. The only thing we can do is stall, which is what I hoped to do for at least a couple of years.
Then, in the last month, a miracle! The housing bubble burst, or at least it got a little deformed.
Sales of previously owned homes plunged in July to the lowest level in over two years, there are record numbers of unsold homes on the market, and instead of appreciating at the unbelievable rate of 20 percent a year, the median price of a new home was up just 0.9 percent from the same month last year. Homeowners are having to drop their prices to get a sale in this new buyers’ market.
To me, all this means we can’t afford to sell, at least not in the foreseeable future. And even when prices start to rise again, experts predict they’ll rise slowly.
Which makes me perhaps the only guy in America who’s actually happy to see this blip in the housing bubble. I figure I’m good for at least another 10 years with no one trying to talk me into moving, and no major disruptions of my domestic life.
Unless she brings home a couple of new throw pillows. Then it’s Katie, bar the door.
Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at [email protected].