Humor

Who’s Been Drinking My Liquor?

Seasonal residents return to some surprises in their homes

Our resort town in the northern climes has many seasonal residents. They leave on Labor Day and return around Memorial Day. One year, I decided to have some fun with them. I wrote the following message in our town’s monthly newsletter, which most of the seasonal residents subscribe to:

We are anxiously awaiting the return of our summer neighbors. To be honest, we’ve grown a bit tired of hanging out with the same 13 people all winter. I know that you wonder what we do here all winter, so let me explain. Since nothing is open after you leave, we party at each others’ homes. But by January, that gets pretty old, so we start thinking about alternatives. Many of you have beautiful homes, and we know how much you appreciate it if we stop in sometimes to check on things. This gives your home that ‘lived in’ look. You know, lots of cars in the driveway, lights on all over the house, music blaring. However, we did encounter a few problems over the course of the winter and we wanted to make you aware of these.

Jane and Brian — We discovered that you moved your housekey to a new hiding place this year. You rascals! To be honest, it was a bit of a nuisance when we arrived at your place to party, especially since the temperature had plummeted to minus 10 degrees. But we were in luck. We found the key pretty quickly, so no worries. In fact, it was a bit too easy. We decided to hide it in a far safer place. Good luck finding it!

Susie and Peter — The liquor at your place was really not the best. But the roads were icy and there aren’t any liquor stores anywhere close, so we had to settle for your bottom-shelf stuff. Do you really serve that crap to your guests? You better stop on your drive up here and get some higher-quality booze. You’ll need a new supply anyway since we did manage to finish it all.

Julia and Scott — Did you know that the flue in your fireplace has some issues? Either that or we just couldn’t figure it out. Anyway, the house got kind of smoky when we lit the fire, and the walls got really sooty. We felt bad, so we painted them for you. We chose black paint so you wouldn’t notice the soot. Of course, if you don’t like the idea of black walls, you might want to bring up some paint when you come.

Suzanne and Jim –With all your plants, we found your home to be like a tropical oasis. We knew you’d appreciate us coming by to water. And, while there, we of course made ourselves at home. One evening, however, someone opened a drawer to get a corkscrew and it was completely filled with water. That was when we also noticed that our socks were getting wet from walking around on your damp carpet. We realized then that your plants are all fake. Now the problem is that your carpeting has a musty smell. We recommend that you bring up some new carpet samples.

If any others of you are worried about what might have been going on in your house over the winter, we’ll be happy to stop by and check things out for you. And if all this news isn’t enough to make you want to jump in your car and hurry back here, we don’t know what is. We’ll be glad to see you!

This text is adapted from my book Downtown, hilarious tales from a fictional Adirondack town. The book is available here.