The Room That Never Was

Because the basement of my childhood home was unfinished, my parents came up with a plan based on a series of DIY projects for my father in his spare time. He made a diagram of what the finished product would look like by dividing the basement into quadrants, mapping out the details in terms of priorities. The laundry room and dark room (my dad’s hobby was photography) would be built first; then the second bedroom; next a workroom for my dad (to be shared with the furnace) and a general play area for us kids; and finally, the rec room and a walk-in pantry (for my mother’s preserves).

It turned out that my dad didn’t have a lot of spare time. But gradually, over the course of three years, the dark room, laundry room and my sister’s new bedroom (at last! a room of my own) was rendered fully functional. The project was progressing slowly, but on still on track, until plans for the rec room underwent a sea change.

I have no idea where they found them, but one Saturday, my parents brought home eight larger-than-life cutouts displaying an Arabian Nights theme. Three of the posters depicted fanciful interpretations of domed buildings with minarets and the other five showed characters from the collected fairy tales, including a brightly clad dancing girl, Ali Baba standing in a cave of glittering jewels and a kissing couple on a flying carpet.

My mom had this great idea—part of the rec room would be transformed into a fairy tale version of the exotic Middle East. The cutouts would be used to create a partition between the TV room and the party room; some of them would also decorate the walls in lieu of pictures. A home bar would be added, and in keeping with the posters, the decor would include large, colorful floor cushions, a low, curvy chaise lounge in a very bright shade and sections of gauzy, veil-like curtains to add ambiance. My mother had outlined this whimsical party room in such detail that she made me envision it too.

I could hardly wait! Forget the adults—it would be a great place to hang out with friends and have birthday parties. Finally, the basement was completed, including the rec room. My mother had arranged the space so that the home bar could still be added at a later date when time allowed. The rec room was great—I hung out with friends, watched TV with my sister and did homework at the communal desk.

But the magical, whimsical, fanciful exotic Middle East-themed party room never materialized. For awhile, the cardboard cutouts informally decorated the basement (translation, they were leaned against the walls and moved from place to place whenever they got in our way). Eventually, the colors faded, a couple of them simply disintegrated and were discarded, and the rest were dismantled and stored out of sight. Upstairs, just off the dining room, a large wood tea cart did double duty as a wine/drinks cart.

A very quick, very informal and very unscientific poll of unsuspecting volunteers in the Cymax lunch room and fax machine area revealed that a fair number of my co-workers do not store their wine and/or spirits in a piece of furniture specifically designed for that purpose. The kitchen cupboard was the hands-down winner at 21. The second most popular place to store any type of alcohol, at 10 votes, was the fridge. Five stated that they would bring a bottle of something home for a special occasion, but they didn’t make a habit of keeping any on hand. One person admitted to hiding a bottle of booze in his sock drawer—but I’m pretty sure he was joking.

Only 11of my co-workers polled for their opinion had some form of wine furniture in their homes. At 7 votes, the hands-down winner of that part of the survey was the all-purpose wine rack. (One person confessed to using said wine rack for “bubbly, fizzy, fruity non-alcoholic drinks,” to which I replied that it still counted.) Of the remaining 4, one owned a wine cooler and the other 3 had liquor cabinets.

I didn’t include myself in the above (very informal unscientific) survey, but I am the proud owner of a nine-bottle wine rack (in a warm wood finish). My Christmas cheer is stored in, you guessed it, the kitchen cupboard farthest from the stove. I enjoy entertaining, and in the last two years, the frequency I have friends over for meals appears to be increasing. More and more, I find myself using my buffet as a home bar, but I have to be careful, since the hutch won’t allow the placement of taller bottles or my really cute ice bucket.

I’ll have to give it some thought. For all those future holidays and the many opportunities life in general brings for celebrating with food, wine and friends, I really would like a more formal place to entertain. Since living in an apartment totally negates any possibility of recreating my mother’s exotic Middle East-themed party room, an elegant liquor cabinet (with hidden casters) or a wine server with a built-in glass rack might be the perfect solution.

Class Yourself Up

This is really hard for me to say. To be perfectly honest, I am not even 100% comfortable talking about the information that I am about to disclose, but I want to help other people the way that I was helped. It has taken me a really long time to say this out loud, but…here goes nothing. Before I got my wine rack, I was…how can I put this delicately…an utterly classless swine; a stinking, cultureless abscess; a vacuous, moronic philistine.

In the mornings I would turn on Maury Povich and watch with wide, engaged eyes and a sympathetic ear; not the normal laughter and harsh judgment that I do now.

I would ferociously tease my bangs every morning, to the point of perspiring - the bigger the better. I would apply copious amounts of foul smelling, dollar store-caliber hair spray that would solidify my coif for days.

In addition to this, my morning primping routine consisted of slathering myself in offensive, cheap perfume that had a known allergen in it. It would cause people in passing to sneeze or suddenly grab their stinging, watering eyes. I didn’t care.

I would speak loudly and use nasty language with little to no regard for those around me. Children and the elderly were subject to whatever verbal fancy I wanted to satisfy.

I used to pretend that I didn’t realize you couldn’t smoke in the mall or in movie theatres.

I once sent my niece to school with Cheez Whiz and a sleeve of saltine crackers for a bake sale.

I used to wear clothes that were far too tight and was convinced that my fanny pack concealed my growing muffin top (Muffin top: Referring to the spillage of unattractive back and abdominal fat (see: love handles) over tight, ill fitting, hip hugging pants).

I tipped poorly and accused most waiters and waitresses of rudeness and poor service to excuse my excessive cheapness.

I waited for excruciatingly long stretches of time between showers and would only finally bathe when I started to notice people casually raising their hands to their noses in my presence. Nor did I change my underwear or socks with any kind of regularity.

If you can believe it, these revolting facts are only the surface scrapings of my seemingly incurable trashiness. Until I got my wine rack, I didn’t even see anything wrong with dark red lip liner and bright pink lipstick. I thought blue eye shadow was all the rage and that black stirrup tights paired with oversized Boca sweatshirts were perfectly acceptable evening attire.

It was a fateful trip to the library which finally taught me the powers of the wine rack. I scoped out a good computer and readied myself for a day’s worth of hilarious You Tube videos: people falling, people crying, any and all kinds of human misery, despite the clear and glaring sign that forbid steaming videos and spending longer than an hour on any one computer. I didn’t care whatsoever. My general unpleasantness would deter any library employee from enforcing this measly stipulation, so I was set for the day. It was here that I discovered morewineracks.com. I thought that a wine rack would be the perfect device to hold my wealth of homemade wines as well as wines I had stolen from various weddings and post-funeral services at the event hall down the road from my trailer. I decided to make it my first online purchase and when it arrived it changed my life. It was as though I had been transformed; a wine rack spell had been placed on me and I was on my way to becoming a sophisticated lady.

At the grocery store I completely avoided the canned meat section and went straight for the real deal. I bought genuine, aged cheddar cheese and didn’t look twice at the cheese in the aerosol can, though I would miss its biting aftertaste. I threw away my teasing comb and purchased a lovely smelling perfume from a nice, respectable department store.

Things were changing for me more and more every day. The second I put the wine rack in my home and filled it with high-class, legally purchased wine, it was as though as though it released powerful anti-trailer park trash supersonic waves and they began cooking away all of my trailer trashy things and tendencies. I starting paying my bills on time and filling the house with good food and good books and before I knew it, my trailer was a palace! The nicest in the park! I threw away all of my ceramic cat ornaments and various Las Vegas knick knacks and statuettes (I had never even been). I incinerated my glass clowns and my Days of Our Lives wall calendar. These are things I no longer needed thanks to my wonderful wine rack. I wholeheartedly suggest that anyone reading this visit morewineracks.com and allow a brand new wine rack to class up your home your wardrobe and your life. Their massive selection of wrought iron wine racks to stunning wood wine racks will certainly carry a cure for even the most severe cases of TPT (Trailer Park Trashiness).