giddyiguana

Why do we have rooms that we don't even use?

Maybe it's a Southern thing, I don't know. But it does seem to be a fairly common phenomenon among the 'better' families I know...the floor plan of their dream houses will contain a "living room" in which no one actually lives and a "dining room" in which no one actually eats. They're easy to spot: they're the rooms in which everything is so nice that you're not allowed to touch it. Now, will somebody please explain to me the logic behind this? What's the point in having anything that's so nice that you can never use it and enjoy it?

I ask this because it became a point of contention in my ongoing debate with my mother. She knew when I moved back here (at HER urging, mind you) that my iguanas and I come as a package deal. Which, at the time, she assured me was not an issue. Well, of course, it has become one. The larger and more territorial they become, the more Mom's hatred of them grows along with them. She's gone from hinting ("How much could you sell them for, anyways?"), to asking ("Why don't you find someone to take care of them for you?"), to attempted bribery ("If you'll get rid of them now, I'll buy you some more when you move out") to blatant threats ("Oh, I just want to KILL THEM!" "Why don't you just take 'em outside and turn 'em loose?", or my favorite: "Why don't we skin 'em and cook 'em?")

The real problem is, neither Bud and Jinx nor I can possibly win under the rules she sets. She won't let me get anything bigger to keep them in ("WE DON'T HAVE ROOM!" is her battle cry...yet somehow we have room for such vital necessities as every issue of Southern Living Magazine published in the last decade and clothes that went out of fashion during the Nixon administration), and then gets bent out of sorts because they're constantly fighting over the precious little living space they ARE allotted. She bellyaches constantly about how 'bad' they make the den smell...but, inexplicably, won't let me move them into another room.

And this is why I mention unused rooms. Mom's "living room" would be perfect...it's quiet, it's out of the way, it's got plenty of space, and it gets plenty of natural light, being on the south end of the house. It's right next to the front door, so taking their terrarium outside for a thorough cleaning once a week would be really easy. And no one would even know they're there; after all, it's been YEARS since Mom held one of her pseudo-haute couture galas (read: bridal shower, garden club meeting, or any other excuse for old ladies to dress up, get together, and act all fancy towards one another) in that room. We used to use that room once a year, as a family, on Christmas Day, but we haven't even bothered with that in eight years (we've 'celebrated' at Aunt Betsy's house, in HER "living room," ever since.) But, no, that's no good. Mom can't give me a single good reason why not, either...other than simply "I don't want them in there!"

Whatever.

Her latest trial balloon is that, if I'm not going to get rid of them, she's going to find me an apartment so she doesn't have to deal with them anymore. Never mind that I'm gone in five months anyways...she just wants them out of her house. But, since she's still so concerned with me "saving my money" (another laugh, since she's charging me rent to stay HERE)...she'd be paying my rent in the meantime! HA! And this is supposed to be a threat???

I really hate living here, as you've no doubt noticed. The only reason why I DO is, well...lack of alternatives. Do you really think I'd willingly give up my privacy, my independence, and every shred of a social life to move back to this million-miles-from-anywhere redneck backwater, with parents who are in complete denial that I've progressed past the age of twelve? Please. But after totaling my car last March and getting stabbed in the back by my own brother (ever his girlfriend's loyal lapdog, that one), and then making the inexplicable decision to get serious about my future by re-enrolling in college, well...I didn't have a whole lot of other venues open to me at that point.

So, all hail the iguanas! They've been my constant friends and companions for four years now...and they may just prove to be my ticket out of Barnwell.

I'd write more, but Mom just came in and told me, "One of your boys has just messed up!" And, as we all know, an iguana taking a shit is an emergency on a par with a nuclear 'first strike' or a Razzle Dazzle sale at Belk's.