some places are like people
I could definitely become a professional housesitter, if all this falls through. I am conscientious, responsible, reliable. I am good with pets. I turn lights on and off appropriately. I open and shut doors and windows. I lock things. I do not have a criminal record. My telephone manner is delightful. I am clean and tidy, or rather I am capable of tidiness, or rather I can empathise with your tidiness. I will not have a party and I certainly will not advertise it on myspace. I will not be scared of the furnace in the basement. Please trust me: I need the money for my big business venture.
I will hire and direct a team of actors to play you and those living in your house whilst you are away. Physical resemblance will not be as important as their ability to adopt and not simply mimic your style, habits, mannerisms and superficial quirks — the rest will follow in due course, according to the time frame/payment plan you have in mind. They will sleep in your bed, eat from your table, do your homework. I will live outside the house and monitor their movements carefully. Dishes, towels, dirty clothes will be left how you leave them, keeping you in the style to which you’re accustomed without the tragic decay of finding everything precisely where you left it three weeks ago when you return. The black, shrunken clementine at the bottom of the bowl.
Once you return it really will be like you never left — except, perhaps, for that patch of pale grass where I pitched my little tent on your lawn.
