One classic guilty pleasure from the 1980s is “The Never Ending Story,” a hokey fantasy film about a mysterious book that actually narrates the reader’s own imagination. After discovering this tome in a cluttered bookstore, a young daydreamer follows the hero Atreyu on his quest to save the mythical land of Fantasia from destruction (and from being sued by Disney for copyright infringement). One test the hero must face is that of looking into a magic mirror that reveals his inner person. Atreyu is cautioned by one of the Keebler elves that few are up to such introspection: “Kind men find that they are cruel. Brave men learn that they are really cowards.” “Confronted with their true selves,” the little man warns, “most men run away, screaming.”
I know exactly what he is talking about. Last weekend, I got a glimpse into my own soul and was not prepared for what I saw there. The darkness — the misery — the horror. You see, for the first time last Saturday, I looked into my gutters.
Since buying my first house two years ago, I now own a backyard. Correction: A colony of moles owns my backyard, and I lease it from them month to month. By the terms of our contract, I’m responsible for all the upkeep above ground, and the moles are in charge of maintaining the vast network of holes, tunnels and night clubs below. I never truly know what they’re doing down there; it’s entirely possible that it involves illegal gambling. But we have a deal: I don’t complain about the spongy earth, and they put up with my wind chimes.
Anyway, for the past three Saturdays I have been raking leaves in the backyard. I’m amazed at how one half-acre can produce 19 Glad Force-Flex bags of debris, and I have a sneaking suspicion that my neighbors have been quietly dumping twigs and whatnot into my yard. They’ve probably managed this one leaf at a time, like Andy in “The Shawshank Redemption,” spilling a spoonful of dirt from his escape route into the prison yard each day for 20 years. I may have to send the moles to harass them.
Again I digress. Since I don’t often go into the backyard, I decided to investigate some of the features of my house while I was out there. I had heard rumors that one of the responsibilities of home ownership was cleaning the gutters, so I thought that after two years I should probably look into that. Armed with a bottle of Windex and a couple of paper towels, I climbed a ladder to see what exactly went on in these mysterious pipes and drains along the edge of my roof.
Clearly, I had brought a knife to a gunfight. As I peered over the edge, I had a flashback from “Ghostbusters II,” when Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson lowered themselves into the New York sewer and discovered all that pink slime oozing beneath the city. I found myself staring into a living, breathing ecosystem of black sludge. I’m convinced I saw things that were alive in there, and, from what I could tell, some of them were still celebrating New Year’s Eve. Trembling with fear, I stuck my leather-gloved hand into the mire, only to sink down to my elbow in the stuff. I ran inside screaming, not knowing whether to call a roofer, a plumber or an exorcist.
I guess I will have to man up and get this mess cleaned out. But before I invest in a hazmat suit, I want to pitch an idea to the moles. I may be sitting on a gold mine here: an entire mole amusement park on my roof, complete with slip-and-slide, free-fall, mud-wrestling and botanical gardens. There may even be space for some Okie Noodling up there. Let’s hope I can put in a carousel and charge admission.
On second thought, perhaps I should just get my mind out of the gutter.
