Boobs, Open Houses and the Ten Item Mobile Principle

I was inspired to write this story after I turned on my computer one morning to check my mail and decided to click on my old MySpace page. The only thing I do on MySpace anymore is play a stupid game called mobsters. It requires that you have hundreds of friends. There was a bulletin from one of my fellow mobsters; a pretty blond girl named candy. I clicked out of curiosity and it brought up a web cam video of her with a pink bra and panties. Sad music was playing in the background and she was looking longingly at the camera, squeezing her boobs and flexing, so you could see her many tattoos.

I was baffled at this video. What was it for? Who was her audience? Below the video was her blog. She wrote about getting wasted and being mistaken for a hooker. She seemed pleased that she was able to con a man out of money for dinner and then ditch him. This girl couldn't be more than nineteen and already she looked haggard.

Being a fan of astrology, I checked her sign. Pisces. Damn. I am also a Pisces. For those of you who know astrology, Pisces is one of the more screwed up signs in the zodiac. They always predict a bleak future of gambling, drinking and elicit behavior. Fortunately for me, I've never cared much for drinking.

I have been thinking a lot lately about Women. It seems that even though we have had the right to vote for almost a century, we still get the short end of the stick a lot of the time. (That was not an insult, by the way, in case any men are reading this) I have several friends who are going through divorces or separations for lots of different reasons.

My friend did an open house the other day and I went along to help, but mainly I wanted to see the place. It was a two million dollar house. When we walked in the door I said "honey, I'm home" under my breath. It was amazing. The attention to detail, the wine cellar, and the theatre with real theatre seats, the stone floors, the wood paneling.

The owner came out to greet us. She was going to leave for the open house but wanted us to take the tour. She was a lovely, very slender woman. She was wearing form fitting black pants, a leopard print top and four inch heels. We followed her as she clicked her way across the hand laid oak floor, up the handcrafted staircase and across the lush oriental carpet. I kept thinking, why is she selling this place? I figured that it had to be divorce.

I waited to see if she would shed any light on the situation but knew that it was not my place to ask. She showed us the laundry room and wet bar and sound system. "It runs through the whole first level" she said. She mentioned something that she had wanted to add or fix. "My Husband was going to do it, or my ex-husband, or soon to be I should say." We kept quiet and kept moving. I was right.

As we walked through the glorious master bedroom she ushered us into the magnificent walk in closet filled with fabulous clothing. She said "I'm going to miss this closet. I have so many clothes. I am getting divorced and I've lost so much weight that I had to get all new clothes." She said. "I want to keep them all because you know; I'll probably gain some of it back again."

"Not necessarily, but you never know." I said bristling with envy. We were still walking and came to the master bathroom. Her heels clicked on the pristine marble but she was fretting that maybe it wasn't clean enough. I looked around and couldn't see so much as a speck of dust.

I mouthed the words "this place is fantastic" to my friend. We passed through the long hallway and saw the children's rooms and family room and bonus room. At this point it started to seem less grand and slightly sad. I realized that this woman, although beautiful and very poised, was obviously hurting and was in the position of having to leave this beautiful home and find somewhere else to live.

I have never had much sympathy for the wealthy as a general rule, but as I've gotten older, I've started to realize that happiness actually has very little to do with how much money you have, or at least I thought so until I saw that house.

As we toured the wine cellar I started to waver on my theory and mused that if I had a wine cellar that beautiful I would never have a reason to drown my sorrows which is kind of ironic. I am not usually the kind of person to gawk at the possessions of others but I have to tell you, the canyon stone floor was so beautiful; I wanted to lay down on it and curl up into a contented little ball.

The theatre room was like something out of a magazine. There were about ten leather reclining chairs with drink holders. The floor had runner lights, just like in a real theater. The woman could see I was amazed and she said "go ahead, sit in one. You won't believe how comfortable it is." I did, and it was. I later snuck back down there between visitors and sat in the chair and I swear I felt as though I were floating on a cloud.

My friend came downstairs to see what I was up to and I told her that this is what heaven is like. She chuckled and I said "no, really, when I die I want heaven to be just like this. I am just going to sit in this chair and watch all my favorite movies for all eternity."

My friend said, "You have to get up and do something sometime."

I said "ok, when I'm not in the chair, I can be walking on an endless stretch of white beach." My friend can't imagine an afterlife that doesn't involve exercise. I can't imagine one that does.

Many people stopped by to drool over the house. At the end of the day I went through all the rooms, turning off the lights and dreaming of what I would do with a house like this. I don't entertain and I don't have a lot of friends but I could sit in my personal theatre and... Well, that's it. Just sit there and enjoy it. I don't think I would need friends if I had a set up like that.

Being lower middle class sucks. I've changed my mind about money making me happy. I want lots and lots of money; so I can buy a house like this.

It's the 'Ten item mobile theory.' I once watched a report on that show, you know the one, they are always trying to tell you that something is wrong with everything. I think it was 20/20 or Dateline. They did an experiment with infants. They hung a mobile above their little cribs and slowly added items to it.

The babies didn't react if you added more items, but would cry if any items were removed. I don't know how accurate this test is, but it sure sounds like the way a human would act, so I don't see why a baby human would be any different. Sure they may look all innocent and sweet, but they grow up eventually, so it must be hard wired in; that crazy desire to own stuff.

I must admit that I didn't want to leave once the open house was over. I was feeling such an overwhelming desire for something so far out of my league that I actually wanted to hug the oak stair case and cling to the imported granite counter-top; it still had that "new granite counter-top smell". It didn't help that my Husband and I had recently lost out on the house we were trying to buy. It was a cute little town house. A far cry from this six thousand square foot mansion but I felt a serious lack of items on my mobile at that moment.

I didn't start to cry or anything but I have been wishing I had a pacifier ever since, which brings me back to the start of this story. Boobs.

Why did Candy feel compelled to push her boobs into her web cam? Did she think it would somehow add items to her mobile? When I saw her video I thought, who would be interested in this except babies? Hungry babies. Then I remembered that Men like boobs too. Women like nice houses and Men like boobs. I guess it's a fair trade but somehow in the end it didn't seem to stop that pretty lady from getting divorced and having to sell her beautiful home even though her boobs looked perfectly adequate to me.

Maybe it comes down to what you are willing to accept. I accept that it's unlikely that I will ever own a two million dollar house. I accept that I am never going to be able to wear four inch heels or squeeze my butt into black designer jeans. It's also very unlikely that I will ever make a video of myself vamping in front of a web cam, but I just can't help but have a nagging sensation, a vague suspicion that somewhere, out there, someone is using their assets and it's translating into real estate.