Free My Planet: Finding Humor in the Oddest Places by Mary Roach Page B

Friskies ads that turned its nose up at everything its owner fed it. (It’s difficult to turn up a nose that is already so far turned up as to have penetrated the sinus cavities, but this cat managed it.)
    Still, it’s been a learning experience. For instance, we have learned the origins of the term In-Law Apartment. This is a basement living area so low ceilinged and devoid of light you would never move your own parents in, but your wife’s parents would fit right in, alongside any enemy soldiers you’ve hauled from the moat and shackled to the walls.
    Once we’ve whittled down the choices, the fun begins. For all of you who make a habit of looking in friends’ medicine cabinets when you’re over for dinner, the Open Home tour is not to be missed. Though the ensuing gossip is less titillating, as you don’t know whom it’s about. Psst, some people on 44th Street in Oakland use beard mascara.
    Unfortunately, these days, most Open Homes have been cleared of the owner’s belongings and “staged” with generically tasteful Pottery Barn furniture and accessories. It’s as though there are whole neighborhoods populated by people who own nothing but brocade throw pillows and eat only colorful Italian dry goods, positioned with their labels facing forward. Often, the staging includes a breakfast tray of croissants and coffee lying on the bed, as though the homeowners had been abruptly chased out and left to wander the streets in their pajamas. Frequently, they’ve left so quickly that the fire is still burning. Ed will kneel down and inspect the fireplace. “We just missed them, Kemo Sabe,” he’ll say.
    Last week, I caught Ed eating the staging. On a table out on the deck, a plate of strawberries had been placed alongside a chilled bottle of wine and two glasses. Ed believed they were treats set out to win us over, like the chocolate-chip cookies Realtors will bake just prior to your visit in an attempt to mask evil odors seeping up from the in-law quarters.
    This afternoon, Ed has been threatening to visit the upstairs bathroom for reasons other than having a look. Ed’s GI tract is timed to go off about three hours after the second cup of Sunday morning coffee, i.e., during our afternoon house hunt. This means he routinely faces the existential torment of an endless array of pristine toilets, all of them off-limits.
    Ed looks at our map. “Which place had the outhouse?”
    Perhaps this is our problem. Perhaps we’re paying too much attention to the cookies and the pillows and the old people moaning in the cellar, and not enough to the actual house. However, I remain confident that one day, when neither of us is expecting it, we will walk into a house, look at each other and say, “This is it.” And our Realtor, like the exasperated Persian cat owner, will sigh with relief and collapse onto a tasteful arrangement of brocade pillows.

    Counter Attack
    It is my personal belief that the people who install the mirrors and lighting in department store dressing rooms are in direct cahoots with the cosmetic companies. All down the rows of rooms, you hear the sad moans and horrified gasps of women confronted with their own fluorescent-lit reflections. My eye bags, I realized the other day while shopping with my friend Wendy, had ceased to be an anatomical feature and were approaching the status of an actual piece of luggage. “You can almost see the little handles,” I wailed. Wendy was in the next room trying on a jacket. “My skin is green,” she was saying. I assured Wendy it was light reflecting off the jacket. “But the jacket is brown,” she said.
    We went directly from there to the makeup department, where a facialist determined that we needed help; a whole new approach. As with all major renovations, this one was to begin with foundation. I told the salesgirl I don’t like foundation, because it sinks into my wrinkles and makes them look even deeper, if you can imagine any deeper wrinkles than the kind