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On New Year’s Day, I drunkenly committed to house- and dog-sitting for my buddy Tube Socks’s parents. In conversation with Tube Socks’s mom, I repeated myself to the point where my pregnant friend said, “Scaaaries, we get it. Stop fucking repeating yourself.” This prompted me to end the conversation without getting any solid details about this commitment.
Then, late last Thursday night, I got the phone call: “Scaries, you still house-sitting for us?”
“Uh, yeah, for sure. When am I doing that again?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Oh. Shit. Alright. How long you gone for?”
“Ten days — that alright?”
Ten days relaxing with two bird dogs at a house that my friends and I kindly dubbed “The Bro Palace”? Uh, yeah, I think I can handle that. The Panic Room isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal, so obviously I’m going to jump at any chance to enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor while they vacation. Little did I know, using their car and eating the nearly-expired food out of their pantry was just the beginning of what makes house-sitting so great.
The Amenities
Nothing makes you realize that you’re a struggling man-child like being balls deep in the house of a well-established married couple.
Let me put this in perspective for you: I haven’t even been here for five days and I’ve already taken nine steam showers. I’ve slept in three different spots on their California king bed. I’ve finished every night with a top-shelf nightcap that’s just been littered with blue cheese olives and cocktail onions. I watched the entire second half of the Pats-Colts game completely naked in their jacuzzi while listening to Paul Simon on the surround sound system.
I feel like Kevin McCallister in Home Alone, except I’m consistently buzzed and I have better hair.
The Pets
Right now, my best friends are a springer spaniel and some mixed breed that unquestionably has a better lineage than I do. They eat on command and like chilling laterally on the couch just as much as I do. Furthermore, I won’t have any Sunday Scaries until February, because it’s damn near impossible to get them when you have two eager canines licking your face and begging you for attention. I’ve been spending most of my free time on our local shelter’s website, because there’s just zero chance I can survive the rest of my life without a dog after this week. I’m flat-out addicted to the companionship.
The Spread
I walked into the house with my laundry basket full of clothes only to see a note that said, “Make yourself at home. Food, liq, help yourself.” While everyone else is on the last leg of their health-fueled New Year’s resolution, I’m eating handfuls of peanut butter-filled pretzels and finding any excuse to use up a close to expiring container of cocktail sauce. I haven’t been to my local coffee shop in a week because I’ve been breezing through Keurig cartridge after Keurig cartridge.
On night three, I opened up the freezer for some ice and saw stacks of frozen meat cuts just begging to be eaten. It turns out that when the homeowners also own the best restaurant in town, every day is Thanksgiving.
Premium Cable
I recently made the mistake of giving a friend of a friend’s HBO GO password to the wrong person, which caused my rights to get justifiably revoked. Now that I’m here? I’ve set up a DVR schedule for all of my favorite shows. I’m getting addicted to HBO and Showtime shows at an unsustainable rate, especially considering I’ll once again be cut off after I’m relieved of my house-sitting responsibilities. Luckily, I’m in negotiations with Barack Obama to exchange my two free years of commnutity college for an HBO GO password:
I’ll go as low as an HBO GO password but that’s my final offer.
— Sunday Scaries (@ScaryScaries) January 21, 2015
The Responsibilities
“The responsibilities?” you ask. On the surface, I’m responsible for the entire Bro Palace and two canine lives. That’s a lot of weight to put on the shoulders of someone who just learned what the word “candid” means a couple months ago. The funny thing is that I really don’t have any burdening responsibilities.
The flowers? A foreign woman is handling them. Cleaning? Someone will take care of that for me on Friday. The snow? Plowed daily. The mail? Stopped.
“But Scaries, you have to let the dogs out three or four times a day.” To me, that might as well say, “You get to leave work at lunch to play fetch with a couple of pups.”
At this point, I’m like a glorified pool boy, and even that’s an overstatement. My biggest responsibilities are making sure I put the pillows back on the right couches and ensuring I replenish the Absolut Citron that I’m being way too liberal with.
As it turns out, I have less responsibilities now than I’ve ever had before, and that’s alright with me..
Image via Shutterstock
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
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Scaries, Tube socks’ parents called. They said stop jacking it in the jacuzzi.
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“Upon further review, the note clearly states ‘Make yourself at home. Food, liq, help yourself.’ The play stands as called.”
Don’t listen to the haters, man. Just do you.
You’re horribly abusing the privilege. You’ve got to learn to control yourself, or you’ll never get the job again.
I think they wanted you to enjoy a nice T-bone, $12 cocktail, whilst naked on their $5,000 couch watching full house re-runs.
You had me at peanut butter filled pretzels……..
When they said “help yourself,” I doubt they meant “help yourself to 6 vodka tonics and a 16 ounce t-bone every night we’re gone.” I can’t imagine they’re ever going to let you house sit again after this.