millions

fifteen houses with little red doors sold this week for fifteen million dollars each. the market’s looking up for sellers, says baby, but low for us. us scoundrel lowly little things, who wish for a house, but only have fourteen million to pay. one million from that old aunt who lives in taiwan, and thirteen million from the BANKS. we’ll wait it out, says baby, who drinks her seventeenth millionth cup of milk and lays dreamily on the couch where we’ve amassed another twenty two million books.

books on history, on who wore what when, who photographed what, the history of why the oscars always gives best picture to the wrong film, why donuts have holes. i have books on shoes, some on round toes, some on pointies. eleven million books that are “novels” though some are much more realistic than the nonfictions, and baby says those which are BASED on true stories can “go to hell.” a book on gnomes, a book on baking cakes without any flour (any type whatsoever), a book with expletives in the title, a million Austens. the books pile and pile like thousands of sandcastles made with expert precision. They sway when the cat slams the door. they gather dust like calling cards. they spill their tall spindly organized chaos from the house like paper tentacles of knowledge (or at least BASED on knowledge) out into the yard where the gophers complain. they chew the pages and then spit out dire gay tales.

“write something decent for once in your life!” the gophers cry.

and this is why we need another house.

also because i have seven point two million shoes. i started collecting at a very young age and haven’t stopped since. once a teacher of mine complained in great distress and sorrow (a drama teacher) that i had no drive, no ambition. but little did he know, because i like to keep a low profile, that i had already amassed a good million shoes and i was on my way to two. i know some people say (and perhaps my drama teacher would agree) that seven point two million shoes is not really enough. what will i wear if i ever get invited to an easter party on a yatch where the eggs are replaced by pastel gumballs and the goal is to find and chew as many as possible and if you’re the unlucky losing guest you will be thrown overboard, left to the misty waves of the sea, and therefore need a versatile pair of high heel crocs. well to those concerned i say, i am working on it. and i do understand that a few more million is more on trend for this day and age in American society.

this is also why i need another house; a larger closet.

when i was younger it didn’t seem as though i needed millions just to get by on an average tuesday. but i was young. besides children know so little, the joke is really on them.

now i’m much more aware, and diligent, about amassing things. just last week i made it to one million yoga mats. some people may think that that many yoga mats is a little light for the amount of yogaing one should really be doing. but i prefer to keep my stretching to two to four minutes a day (in which i also check pinterest), allowing for maximum use of mat, taking photos, and then the remaining minute for the purchase of a new mat. i just go on amazon and order the next one on the list (search: luxury yoga mat.)

we have over fifty seven million things in our house which is splitting at the wooded seams. but we know it’s not enough. we know that we should at this point have several homes. one for each ten million items. a pool house where the pool can go to relax after guests diving into it all week. a mountain house where we snuggle up deep into the hard flesh of the mountain; best for sleeping off shopping hangovers. a vacation house where we can take the other houses for a long two week getaway every six weeks. the vacation house is crucial due to it’s photogenic nature. it’s where we gather our near and dear and millions of little light bulbs and take photos of pancakes, swings swinging gently but also somehow forlornly, current budding romances in exaggerated happiness, post-breakup pool sessions with millions of crackers and millions of tiny ham and cheese rolls, and of course anything related to holidays and/or car interiors.

if we had the other five to six homes we might be able to fit all the books back inside our first, but at this point they are bursting out and the neighbors complain that our yard sounds too literary. really they’re just trying to peak over the fence to see how many books we might have. it’s hard keeping up with how many millions of things one must have, especially to be deemed worthy of having a fifteen million dollar house (there is of course a worthiness scale), but we try to keep our heads up and keep buying things. this is America after all, says baby, suspiciously.

we know one person, an old friend i suppose, who stopped buying things just last year. she lived in a mansion with twenty three rooms, three gyms, two indoor pools with corresponding pool phones to call one pool from the other, and two tigers. the walls were bunched with millions of tiny little pictures she would buy from any artist who worked in miniature form, and she had millions of spoons, all silver. one day over five back to back manicure and pedicure appointments she told me she was starting to feel “SWALLOWED UP” by the things. and she told me that she had started to question, her eyebrows tight and shaped like a sloppy v, had started to become suspicious, of how much all the millions of things were really worth.

“sure, some things are worth something, to you personally. but what about the rest of it?”

“is a house really worth fifteen million dollars?”

well of course i looked at the manicurist and then the pedicurist, and then we all looked at one another, and our mutual look basically said, uh-oh, this woman is mad. it was sad to see someone loose grip on reality like that.

three weeks later the woman had a “YARD SALE” to get rid of her millions and millions of things. she wanted nothing but the things to be gone, to be someone who didn’t have millions of things. and it was all free. millions of people came, a few did perish in a German fine china stampede, and the woman sold the house a week later (at fifteen point three million dollars, which was market value after all). we don’t know where she lives now and we couldn’t possibly figure it out because we’re too busy buying things.

baby says we need more cars and perhaps that will cosmically attract more houses and i confess i’m willing to try anything, lately i’ve been sagging under the weight of the growing yoga mats. i’m also hoping to get my new formal wear business off the ground, and thankfully we’ve had many successful photo shoots. the new gowns are woven of millions of freshly picked white oleanders, picked of course only under a full moon, and woven around the wearer, making the dress an intimate and supple make, but also slightly dangerous, which is huge this year. each gown is around three million and it will be a boutique and exclusive collection, dropping the prunes and needles immediately after the production of the millionth dress. nothing says luxury like a million poisonous little flowers sown lovingly around your naked body.

Nichelle Wyatt-Whyte writes essays on culture and art, as well as fiction, on the blog Yellow Blue Jay. Nichelle is published in Selfish magazine, and creates content and designs for local art organizations. She lives and works in Northern California.