The Misanthrope's Corner - narrative on moving into a new apartment - Brief Article

National Review, Dec 31, 1999 by Florence King

Dear Gentle Readers: 'Tis that season again, and I'm all ready for it. Most people get out their box of tree lights at this time of year, but I got out my box of quotations to find something suitable to kick off my Christmas letter to you.

It didn't take long. With a new millennium upon us, the winner is Oscar Wilde's accurate prediction that he would die before the end of 1900 because: "If another century began and I was still alive, it would really be more than the English could stand."

The first order of business is to thank you for your housewarming cards and gifts. I love the fridge magnets, potholders, dishcloths, and that fantastic rum-soaked fruitcake: I just drank a piece for breakfast.

The move could not have gone more smoothly. The company charged just $100 an hour for four men, and they all introduced themselves and shook hands when they arrived. They worked so fast that the bill came to only $300, and they were surprised when I tipped them each $10. Civility is not dead everywhere. The next time a Southern newspaper calls me for a comment on that standard Sunday feature, "Is the South Still the South?," I intend to give a resounding "Yes!"

My new apartment is a duplex, 2BR as before, but smaller and newer, hence easier to keep clean. The old one was a huge barn with woodwork and molding that collected dust, and more doors than a Vincent Price movie. The doors also had little decorative ledges that collected still more dust. It would have been an ideal place to test the housekeeping advice of the late memoirist Quentin Crisp ("After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse"), but cleanliness, despite the ever- present risk of godliness, is a priority with me.

Not so aesthetics, which explains what I used for a living-room "window treatment," as decorators say. A shower curtain. Not the plastic kind, but the fabric kind that requires a liner when used as intended. I like it. It goes with the rug and it's easy to open and close-just give it a slap.

My old building was tucked into a side street, but now I'm downtown amid the city noises I love. Conservatives are supposed to underwrite William Cowper's "God made the country, and man made the town," but total silence distracts me so much that I need an exhaust fan on at all times for "white noise." One of my earliest memories is the streetcar rattling over the end-of-the-line switch outside our windows, and the driver reversing the wicker seats with screeching slams. Fredericksburg has nothing that good, but I'm on the main drag to the hospital and get a lot of sirens.

Before deciding on this apartment, I looked at another that was really, really downtown-in the balcony of the newly renovated old movie theater. It was practically a penthouse; a circular steel staircase winding up to 2BR, each with a bath; wall-to-wall carpet, washer/dryer, dishwasher, and wet bar, all for $850. But such elegance would be wasted on somebody who decorates with shower curtains, and my object was to have less space, not more. Besides, it involved a long trek through the "galleria"-a veritable mall-to get to the elevator.

I'm on the ground floor now, but since I write and watch TV in the kitchen, I have to walk upstairs to the bathroom. A well-known and respected conservative, who shall remain nameless, suggested a way to make things easier on myself, but I told him I couldn't do it. Lest we forget, civilization emerged not from the grand documents and noble philosophies of men, but from an arbitrary little voice in the female head saying, "That's not nice!"

Other than that, my socio-cultural observations are on hold because the post office does not forward catalogues. I had phone numbers for the ones I've ordered from so I called them with my new address, but the ones I merely studied are lost.

You can learn a lot from catalogues you never order from. How somebody like Bill Clinton ever got elected becomes instantly clear when we view universal suffrage through the prism of three offerings: "Will make your friends scream with laughter!" (toilet seats that play Sousa marches in response to pressure); "A real attention-getter!" (lifelike severed limbs); and, "Guaranteed to liven up your parties!" (Le Mannequin Pis drink dispensers).

I moved my NR-idea files myself, clutching them to my heart all the way to the new place. Now that I'm settled, I've gone through them and made column notes. A sampling:

1. The switch from mere age to "age groups" and the relentless use of the word "generation" have convinced me that undifferentiated blobs aren't so bad after all.

2. I detect movement on the virtue front: Apologies are out and forgiveness is in. You might think one could not exist without the other, but it's no longer necessary to have a petitioner in order to have an absolver. Forgiveness, once a sign of a generous soul, is now a sign of individual responsibility and superior awareness. The most committed forgivers need no prompting, which is why their forgiving is indistinguishable from their recycling and flossing.