5 minute read
Live @ the lounge
But is there space for a tennis court?
Yeah gidday. Lizard here.
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Merry Next Year and a happy ending to this one. Good riddance? I put it to you, “What sort of topsy-turvy circumstances could lead to a boom for builders and a bust for architects?” What are you on about Lizard, I hear you ask? Apartments!!! That’s what I’m on about. Get this. Me and Shaz have been, she says encouraged, I say hounded, by a property expert friend of a friend of an idiot we know, that now is the perfect time to decrease our footprint(?).
According to this expert, we are woefully under-utilising our ‘investment’ by having a caravan plonked smack-bang in the middle of an acre of bush. This expert can put us in contact (already sounds infectious) with a property developer who could maximise our longterm outlook by minimising our short-term incomings(?). Tax purposes darling. Going forward? Who speaks like that? Going forward to where? Did she just call me short? I regretted it as soon as it came out of my gob, saying it couldn’t hurt to just have a goose at a few apartments to give us an idea of what we could do on our plot.
“Each apartment individually designed to meet every personal need”, the brochure said. “All apartments finished in gorgeous ‘sea foam’ white. We strongly encourage the use of neutral tones to heighten the appeal for future occupants.” I thought, who lives in their house for thirty years keeping it ‘finished’ to please the next bloke?
But wait. There’s more.. “We personally hand-select our kitchens from mainly locally-sourced hardware stores. Yes, that is synthetic extruded bamboo marbleene. It’s our most popular. You have a choice of 65 colours but it only comes in that particular size. Obviously. That way, it cleverly clicks together with the sink-pantry-laundry units to form a structural fire-resistant splashback. All to Council specifications and town planners eventual approval.
“We like to think that you could walk into any one of our ten thousand apartment dwellings and immediately feel right at home.”
Is that bread baking I can smell?
“Homely but not cluttered. That’s the secret. Let the future singlechild-family be free to imagine themselves living out their dreams in your unit.”
I thought, who decided that a bedroom should only be for sleeping. That it should only ‘accommodate’ a queen sized bed and adequate storage? As Cat Stevens asked back in the 1970s, “Where do the children play?”
When I was a kid, I had a train set set up on the floor of my room. I’d have mates over after school and we’d hang out in my room. I had a stereo and a huge old couch. I was told to clean my room, not to keep the open flow alley to the dinette clear, to allow access to the benchtop air frier ice-maker. When I got under Mum’s feet, I was told to go to my room. Now kids are told to wait in the kitchen nook until their fathers get home through the internally accessed carport cavity slider. It’s a bloody door in a garage. Twat. Which, by the way, only has room for either Mum’s electric scooter, Dad to hang his punching bag or the ride-on weed eater.
Designed off plan, these gottages come in flat packs at your local hardware retailer in the kit-set flooring, adhesive and soft furnishing aisle. (Assembly required.) What a bargain.
With easy access through the side-gated, artistically-partitioned fence, in either Black, Moody Grey or Jamaican Coffee Bean you can relax with the peace-of-mind you’ll find living under, not one but three Body Corps. Thus ensuring all-year-round maintenance of the shared patio lawn. The reassuring weekly tenants’ meetings will keep you up to date with all refuse recycling requirements, future car park strategies and swipe card allocations. All occupants being between the ages of 49 and 51 guarantees like-minded tranquillity. No budgies or tropical fish, please. Of course there’s a spa pool. Bottoms up. All this is just a mobility scooter’s ride from the adjoining, awardwinning retirement estate, The Final Rest Aquatic Centre.
“Help!!!” I ran around screaming, eventually finding my way onto the street and there, lo and behold, was Shaz chatting to the agent next to Whitevan. When I got back to the caravan, Mopey Jesus was sitting on the ground scratching Plumless behind the ear. I told him about my nightmarish tour and he said “I bet no subversive political ideals will be conceived or great poetry ever written over coffee in the food hall at 147B/72 Quietside Parade, Auckland, 0604. Am I right?”
“That’s for damn sure, Mopey. For damn sure” “On a cheery note,” he went on to say, “at least there’d be no room to swing a cat. Strange behaviour I’ve always thought.”
Happy distancing everyone. Later, Lizard. P.S. I know this is New Lynn, but what would Old Lynn think?
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