Friday, November 28, 2008

I want a ladder.

At any given moment, with absolutely no warning whatsoever, anything in my house has the capacity to amuse me. Tonight it was my step ladder. I was passing through to the back of the house in which I live and, sitting by the back door, there was MY stepladder. Mine. I own it. I went to a shop and I paid money and bought it for me to use on those occasions when something is marginally too high to reach by precariously balancing on a chair of dubious stability. Adults own things like that. Not children, they use their parent's stepladder. Ergo, I am an adult for owning a stepladder. Hoorah.

Among the plethora of things that I own, a proper grown up ladder, of more than 4 steps that you can reach the ceiling with, is not among them. I shouldn't own one because there are rules about such things and the rules say so.

I rent. That's it in a nutshell. Further among the things I do not own is a house. I was never inclined towards, or financially capable of, such a feat. The fact is that people who rent have no business owning proper grown up high ladders. If something needs doing in a house that is rented that requires the use of a grown up high ladder then it is the landlord's job. That's the rule, the line that needs to be crossed to get from "tenant's job" to "landlord's responsibility." The ladder is that line. I don't know if that's how it's worded in the tenancies agreement but in practice, that's how it works.

But I want one. I covet them. Years this has been going on. Honestly. I'm that crazy, really. I'm mad me. I don't own a house but by God I shall have my ladder. A ladder with a gimmick, obviously, because if a person who isn't strictly qualified to own something insists on having one anyway, there must be some other, less practical aspect to it's operation that opens its usability options up into hitherto unexplored vistas. Something a practical, house owning grown up with a need to maintain his or her ceiling wouldn't absolutely find essential to perform normal grown up ladder type tasks, in this particular case.

A bendy ladder, perhaps. Hmmmmm,...