A long time ago when BP and I were debating whether to renovate our old house or move, we did a little house hunting. Let me just interject that in this place and time we had recently watched a creepy voodoo themed movie called "The Believers". In this movie people were sacificing chickens, lighting candles on homemade altars, and dying of supernatural causes. I don't really remember the details, but I remember watching it in a fetal position with a blanket wrapped tightly around me. I may have left the living room light on all night so I wouldn't have to go upstairs in the dark. Back to house hunting, we checked out a townhome across the street from Woodbridge Center Mall. We couldn't quite place the smell. The place was quite clean. Cooking spices? Maybe. Nice kitchen. Decent sized living room. Very nice master bedroom. Is this a linen closet? No, it's not. One shelf. Statues, little pictures, flowers, candles, incense... all paraphenalia to pray to...Jesus? Mary? ancient ancestors? Buddha? the dark forces? We were out of there.
This was back in the hey day of the haunted house movie. Eddie Murphy used to do this skit. Here's the difference between white people and black people. You have all these white people in horror movies. The kid gets sucked into the TV. The walls are bleeding. People are getting possessed and their heads are spinning, literally around on their necks. These white people stay until they're all dead and the credits are rolling. You never see black folk in these movies. Black people go to see a house. Look at these big rooms. Great yard for the kids to play in. Beautiful kitchen. Then a voice from the chandelier says G-E-T O-U-T! Too bad we can't stay.
And that's how fast we left the townhome across the street from Woodbridge Center. In retrospect, we now know that the owners were Hindu and it is very common for them to maintain shrines in their homes. Still, a non-Hindu like me might be a little unnerved by a shrine-in-the-linen-closet.
I have recently learned that this uneasiness might be universal, even within own's own religion. My father-in-law has always been sole owner of the upstairs hallway. This is because he is the proud owner of over a hundred saint statues and other religious icons. The family has known for years that the eyes of all these statues follow you on the way to the guest bedroom. If castastrope ever strikes the Vatican and they find themselves in need of statues, the church will call my father-in-law. But since that probably won't happen, we are left wondering who will some day inherit this collection. I want to publicly say that long before my children were thought of, before my sister-in-law was out of elementary school, I declared that those statues will not ever live with me.
My in-laws are now preparing to sell their home. To prepare, my mother-in-law wisely boxed up every last saint, relic, picture, and the kneeler (yes, he owns a kneeler!) and hired a painter to spruce up the house. She was showing the newly painted hallway to Laura and me and we nodded wholehearted approval of their now-normal second floor. Then she opened the door to the storage closet. Hundreds of Holy Eyes staring out at us, peeking around the Christmas wrap and suitcases. Laura and I gasped, looked at each other, and promised to fix this in the morning. If we were potential homebuyers, this is where we would be jumping into our car wondering "What in heaven's name was that?"
So in the morning, Laura was hunched in closet in the eaves handing me all the items that might scare off buyers of all spiritual persuasions. After everything was cleared out, we slid the kneeler into the back corner and tucked the hip-high Archangel Michael with the broken wing underneath it. We hid the equally large Moses and his Ten Commandments behind the largest boxes we could find. Although we pulled up the flaps on all the boxes many of the Apostles and Mother Seton were still sticking up, so they are now wearing a lampshade. I double-checked that the framed picture of St. Sebastian, who is tied by the wrists to a tree and is oozing blood from his multiple arrow wounds, was safely facing a wall because if an actual Voodoo high priestess shows up, neither she nor her family will be hanging out long enough to ask questions.
In recap, the upstairs hallway is beautiful, the saint collection is totally camoflauged, and not one item of it will ever come to live with me.
