I am looking for someone — anyone — to purchase my biggest mistake, my most brutal nightmare, the godless creation of my worst impulses: my 4-bed, 3-bath, 37-moving-bookcase home.
Moving bookcases signify studiousness, literacy, and above all, good hostmanship. As soon as I signed the deed to my home, I installed one to ensure my parties would be thoroughly amusing. Unfortunately, much like Icarus, I soon became trapped in an endless labyrinth of bookcases.
The first moving bookcase was a smash hit. When my guests inquired about drinks, I directed them to a seemingly stationary bookcase. One pull on the spine of Moby-Dick set the bookcase in motion. My guests clapped in surprise. I had shattered their notions of what they thought possible: I, Leopold Smith, revealed a bar cart stashed inside a 3’x 4’ drywall enclave lit by a single bulb.
But what Moving Bookcases Digest fails to mention, you see, is that a moving bookcase captures one’s attention for only so long.
When the moving bookcase stopped inspiring awe, I suggested to my architect that we put in another. “The butterfly’s beauty,” I told him, “lies in the symmetry of its wings.” However, on the night of my second moving bookcase reveal, my colleagues proved difficult to please. When the bookcase rotated, they passed through its opening as if it were a mere normal door. “Oh, another moving bookcase,” one guest said. “How nice, Leo.”
Scorned in my own home.
“You want three moving bookcases?” My architect stammered after I barged into his office.
“No, I don’t want three moving bookcases,” I said. “I want seven.”
My guests arrived the following Thursday. I could not saddle my rampant glee. I ushered them through moving bookcase after moving bookcase, and their faces contorted into a collective shock: the likes of which the world had not seen since the news of Princess Diana broke. Soon, however, they found their words.
“How many bookcases are there?”
“Do the bathroom bookcases lock?
“What happens if you want to read one of the books that’s a lever?”
Their mirth was intoxicating. Yet, it was also short-lived. They did not return to my home.
“Maybe it was the bookcases,” my architect suggested.
“Why on earth would you assume it was the bookcases?” I snapped. “It must have been a different architectural feature.”
An online forum of self-professed architects told me exactly what I needed: to remove most of my home’s windows and add in dozens of more moving bookcases.
My architect begged me not to proceed. I told him never to call me again.
Against my former architect’s best counsel, I completed renovations two years later. Guests filed into Casa de Leopold Smith for an evening they’d not soon forget. They stood trembling in anticipation in the Grand Foyer. No one took off their shoes or coats.
We made our way through several moving bookcases, yet found ourselves once again in the Grand Foyer. Somewhere along the route, I had taken the wrong moving bookcase. Guests coughed in discomfort. I was losing their interest. We embarked on the tour once more, and again… arrived back at the Grand Foyer. Now my guests murmured. This was worse than coughing. So, we embarked again. And again. And again.
By our fourteenth trip back to the Grand Foyer, my guests turned on me. One by one, they sauntered out the front moving bookcase and back to their cars like the feckless cretins they were. I didn’t need them. I didn’t need a single one of them.
With those traitors gone, I weaved through my home like a new lover, eager but unaccustomed to the twists and turns of her body’s 37 moving bookcases. Hours passed. Then days. My hair grew longer. I resorted to eating my books. However, I mistakenly chose one that served as a lever, which only barricaded me even deeper within the walls of my home. I screamed for help, but, arrogantly, I had removed far too many windows. The last thing I remember is ruefully whispering my former architect’s name as everything faded to black.
I don’t know why she spat me out, but by the grace of God, she did. All I remember is gasping to life in the middle of my Grand Foyer. And I knew then: I had to sell. This was bigger than me now. So please… buy my 4-bed, 3-bath, 37-moving-bookcase home. Take her. Take her away from me.
Listing price is $899,000 for the home (plus the cost of 37 moving bookcases, which is actually a lot more than that). Please contact Jessica at Re/Max with questions about the property, and please contact local authorities should you find any lost parties within the moving bookcases.