By: Mary Fran Bontempo
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Every winter around this time, my wheels start spinning.
Much to my husband’s dismay, after months holed up in my admittedly very nice home, staring at the same walls 24/7, I start to hate everything. And I mean everything, including the furniture, the flooring, the bathrooms, the curtains, the kitchen, the light fixtures, and the walls themselves.
I look around, secretly plotting the many ways I’m going to spend the $50,000 it will take to get the house looking exactly the way I want it, while Dave watches me out of the corner of his eye, avoiding my gaze and breaking out in a sweat if I stare at any one offensive item for too long, knowing full well he’s about to be assaulted with my plan to purge the house of the offending element.
Did I mention that we don’t have $50,000?
Still, every year, it’s the same story. But this year, Dave is getting a little breathing room. Because no matter how many things I want to change, at least we’re not in Sochi.
I may hate my bathroom, but at least it has a door, which closes on a room containing a single toilet, as opposed to the dueling pottys pictured side by side in a Sochi security screening site last week. The doors I do have in my home all have door knobs, allowing easy access, unlike the door in Yahoo sports writer Dan Wetzel’s Olympic hotel room. (Wetzel was lucky enough to be in possession of three light bulbs, which he offered as a trade for a knob.) My internet and electrical systems may not always work (and my hate for Comcast is still legendary), but at least the wiring for everything is firmly ensconced in the wall, unlike the tangle of cords snaking through hallways and from holes in the walls at hotels in the Russian resort town playing host to the world at the Olympics.
While some of the images posted on the internet “from Sochi” have been proven bogus, others aren’t. The legitimate pictures are pretty appalling. For a country that wants the world to think it’s a destination spot and re-emerging world power, well, maybe they should have cleared the stray cats from the media center and unstacked the chairs before the journalists got there and started taking pictures. (Perhaps Putin can parade around shirtless, as he is wont to do, as a distraction. Nah, frankly, I think the stray cats are more attractive.)
As for me, I’ll likely still be looking around for a few home renovation projects come spring, but Dave can rest easy. Because no matter how tired I am of my bathrooms, floors, walls, electronics and so on, they are all in one piece. And they all do their respective jobs–minus holes, exposed wiring, missing doors and absent door knobs.
Things at Chez Bontempo may not be perfect, but hey, at least I’m not in Sochi.
What are your thoughts on Sochi? Click “comments” below and share!
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