The Light at the End of the Tunnel

My husband and I have always wanted to buy an industrial building and turn it into living space. That is just the kind of people we are—stupid people. We almost bought a hospital once and at a different time a school, but passed on both for various reasons--so the search continues. Recently my husband saw an ad for a railroad tunnel for sale. Part of the ad read: For sale: one gently used railroad tunnel, natural air conditioning, excellent storage possibilities. My husband was all over it.

“Let’s buy it!”
“Why?”
“We could turn it into a house.”
“Why?”
“It would be fun; it could be our grand adventure.”
“I am too young to die.”

It turns out the tunnel is a half mile long, twenty-one feet high and runs through the center of a mountain. It comes with fifty-four acres of commercial property and even on hot summer days stays an even fifty-one degrees temperature.

“Well I need light if I am going to live in a cave.”
“It isn’t a cave, it is a tunnel and we can get some lamps.”
“No, I mean sunlight, I am not a mole.”
“Each of the tunnel ends can be made into big glass windows.”
“Yeah but what about the center, it would be like, dark. Couldn’t we put in some windows on the side?”
“It is in the center of a mountain, how do you propose I carve windows out of the mountainside?”
“Dynamite.”

A Coeur d'Alene real estate company is marketing the property for a man named Don Parker, owner of the tunnel. Mr. Parker points out its potential for enterprises that thrive in cool, dark places, like commercial mushroom production or wine storage. Parker said he's confident that the tunnel could again be part of a viable commercial venture.

“Well if you didn’t want to live there we could turn it into a business.”
“You don’t know how to drive a train.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean something unique.”
“Like what?”
“I know, how about . . . a restaurant.”
“A restaurant?”
“Yeah, and we could get a spotlight and a train whistle, then when everyone is eating we could turn on the spot light and blow on the whistle and pretend a train is coming.”
“We would be the only restaurant around that has to have a doctor on-call for when our customers go into cardiac arrest.”
“Ok, well how about the world’s largest dark room?”
“Most people use digital cameras now.”
“We could harvest bat guano. I have heard of people doing that.”
“You have not heard of people doing that. Nobody does that! What would we do ‘that’ for? I do not want to harvest bat guano. One bat in the tunnel is a deal-breaker for me.”
“Ok fine. I know--how about the world’s biggest smoker? We just herd the cows in and light it up. Voila, 2 tons of beef jerky.”
“Oh yeah? Who is going in afterward and scooping up ½ a mile of meat?”
“I don’t know. Why do I have to think of everything?”

The newspaper article continued with: "I believe that it's the most unusual property that we've dealt with," said Thomas Tagen, the listing agent with Tomlinson North Idaho Sotheby's International Realty. No kidding.

“How about this idea--we could raise veal.”
“I thought you didn’t like sheep?”
“Veal is baby cows, not sheep.”
“Oh.”
“The calves are born and then are put in a box so they don’t move around much. They get fed all the time and kept in the dark for a few weeks, all the while getting juicy and tender, and then they go to slaughter.”
“Oh my gosh! That is terrible. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“The poor little cows; I don’t think I could be a veal farmer.”
“Ok, how about we open a daycare.”
“A daycare?!! I just said I don’t want to torture cows, but you think torturing kids would be ok?”
“A daycare would not be torture, it would be a big open space for them to run.”
“Yeah, like run away.”
“When the parents drop them off we could just lock ‘em in. They would be glad to see their mom’s and dad’s at the end of the day. The tricky part would be getting them to come back . . . .”
“I think it would be cruel to keep them in the dark all day and send them home for dinner and then off to bed . . . in the dark.”

The article went on to quote the Real Estate agent Tagen, who said, “The tunnel itself has deep psychological meaning, that's why you see so many films with tunnels." Tagen then said. "There's an element of mystery and intrigue." That’s us, mysterious and intriguing; all our friends say so, only they call it weird and scary.

“Ok, how about this for a business idea--a beauty parlor? You wouldn’t even have to be good at it. It isn’t like they could see themselves in the mirror.”
“I am still sad about the veal.”
“Alright, no more talk about the veal. Think happy thoughts. How about we make the tunnel into a bar?”
“A bar?!”
“Why do you keep repeating everything I say?”
“I thought if you heard it repeated back to you, it might give you some idea of what it sounds like to a normal person.”
“Anyway, about the bar . . . We serve drinks in the center of the tunnel. That way, by the time everyone walks back to their car they are sober. It would cut down on drunk driving. We would be doing a community service.”
“This conversation is making me want to drink.”
“Well, how about this idea—a church!”
“I am just gonna come right out and say it: you have lost your mind.”
“Hear me out. We could re-use the spotlight and train whistle idea—that would be sure to get people down on their knees. Plus, if we close off each end of the tunnel the congregants are stuck there for the whole sermon!”
“Well, I certainly know who I will be praying for.”
“Ok this is the last idea I have, how about the world’s largest strip mall? We hand out flash-lights at the door with low-batteries and put a Radio Shack in the center—with batteries always on sale! I am telling you, I smell money!”
“I smell smoke that is for certain. Listen, if you really want this tunnel thing, we can get it. I’m not really “on board” with any of your business ideas, but maybe it could be a summer home that only you visit, or maybe the world’s largest man cave. If we do buy it though, can we get one of those vintage handcar thingies like they have in cartoons? I always wanted to try one.”

Hurry and act now, this train tunnel won’t last long. This is a limited time offer and it can be yours for the low, low price of $650,000!--unless of course, we get it first.

The Day I Went Blind

Have you ever been blind? Me neither. I have been called deaf and dumb before, so adding blindness wouldn’t be much of a stretch. I do wear contacts, so I often say that I am “as blind as a bat” and as if on a cue, some know-it-all person will come out of the wood-work and say in their know-it-all way, “bats aren’t blind, you know.”

Listen, if I wanted to know that much about animals and science and nature, I would watch more public television. As it is, my brain is full with important facts, like: how many miles I can drive the car on empty before I really run out of gas, and what time I absolutely have to be dressed in the morning so that I won’t be late taking my kids to school.

Snooty, smarty-pants people really bug me. So they have some mental aptitude, do they have to draw attention to it all the time? I sweat like a rabid goat when I am scrubbing the tub, but you don’t see me bragging about it do you? Who cares if bats are blind or not, they are ugly and that is what really matters. If I saw a bat coming at me, otherwise known as a flying rat, I would scream. Seriously, does it matter if they can see? I can see them, elude and evade, that is my motto when it comes to bats.

Now, because of my disgust for bats you may think that I am biased against ugly things. This is not the case. I let my husband keep most of his things inside the house and some of it is so ugly it will make you wish you were blind. So see, I am really an accommodating and tolerant person. Except for smart people, they do get under my skin.

People of above average intelligence just don’t understand what it is like for those of us with average (ok, slightly below average) IQ’s. What I know I gleaned from the streets, otherwise known as the school of hard knocks. Things I have been taught over the years cannot be lectured about in a classroom; I have been educated in the gritty underbelly of suburbia and there isn’t a tougher one around than the cul de sac. For example: I have learned that if you say yes to the Avon/Mary Kay/Tupperware lady she will come back. I have learned that the Schwann’s man will not deliver ice cream at 2:18 a.m. even if it is an “emergency.” I have learned that if you dice up vegetables really, really, really tiny you still cannot hide them in a meatloaf.

Ok, so I did go to University, but that is irrelevant. I didn’t learn anything there except for the fact that student loans will force you to eat Top Ramen for a minimum of 10 years after graduation. My point is, even if you are smart you don’t have to be a show-off about it. I try to increase my intelligence. I do, I try. I read a lot, maybe I am just reading the wrong kinds of books.

One of the books that I read recently is “Lessons I learned in the Dark” by Jennifer Rothschild. It is basically a memoir about a woman who goes blind in high school. I loved the book because it talks about faith and trust and relying on things we cannot see. It is very moving. It also talks about things a sighted person wouldn’t worry about, like how to decorate your house, or how to choose an outfit or how to get ready for a date when you are sightless. Things that people with vision take for granted.

The book says that if you repeat the same process every time, when putting on makeup or fixing your hair, you can feel when you are having a bad hair day, even when you can’t see it. Just to show that I was trying to learn, I did a little social experiment, I decided to try and get ready to go to the mall as if I were blind, I mean, how hard could it be right? Ha!

I thought it would be easy to put makeup on and fix my hair without seeing what I was doing. Evidently, you have to really be blind to apply makeup in a way that makes you look like you are not blind. When I was through with my face I looked like I had applied my makeup in the dark with my eyes closed. On a positive note, it was the first time my husband ever asked me if I had “done something different with my hair?” Now, keeping with the theme I decided not to look at myself in a mirror before I left the house. I mean really, I was “blind” so it didn’t matter to me, right? It is the people that can see me from the front that feel frightened by my appearance. Besides, my husband likes sympathy, and trust me, he got a lot of sympathetic looks that day.

Well, the blind thing didn’t work out, but I bet you already guessed that. Yeah, I ran into a friend while I was out at the mall and she asked me what was wrong, was I sick, did I have a seizure while applying my mascara? All the typical questions one might get on their first day of blindness. “No,” I said, and I explained my experiment about putting on my makeup blind.

“Well,” she said, “you must be as blind as a bat, because you look terrible.” And that is when I said . . .

“Oh yeah, well bats aren’t blind you know.”