I went to Malden Friday with my friend Glam*, who was looking for a desk to make oboe reeds on (specifically enough).  There's kind of a big junk shop — er, antique co-op near Malden Center , so we made a little day of it. 

These kinds of places — antique malls we called them back in Indiana — are always full of thrills and chills, even when you don't score, mostly on account of the history of bad taste they invariably provide. In fact, the more high-end the antique emporium, the less of an adventure, in my book at least.  I mean, the more junk there is, the more exciting the find. 

And like I said, even if you don't score, you come away with a strange feeling of... well, just a strange feeling.  As we passed through a particularly horrifying stained and unstuffed living room ensemble I was telling Glam it was the perfect evocation of getting old and dying alone.  In fact, the sofa looked as if someone had died on it — and it was one of those cases where no one discovered the body until six weeks later.  I mean, that's priceless.

There were some worthy curios, though, I have to say.  Some odd little pieces you couldn't imagine what they were for and why anyone would have made or manufactured them.  But they were all, luckily, a little too pricey to snap up on impulse.  Because once you start collecting kitsch, it's a slippery slope.  And yes, ironic hoarding is still hoarding, folks.

Glam left empty handed, partly, I think, because he had come with something specific in mind trying to manifest it. That takes a master.  But I managed to score a tiny overpriced weathered cast iron** birdbath shellacked with some lead-based paint that was chipping off precisely because I wasn't looking for it.  Or didn't know I was looking for it till I found it. 

And then Glam got another five bucks off by exposing his shaved head (which is usually under a cute little pork pie hat), looking badass, and asking suggestively if the price was... negotiable.  It felt just like a Priceline commercial!

We had lunch at Hugh O'Neill's Pub in Malden Center and watched life's rich pageant passing by on the sidewalk.  Even though Malden is about ten minutes from Boston, I hardly ever get out of the city, so the sights and sounds, especially from the gathering place on the corner in front of CVS seemed highly exotic.

Afterwards we went back to Glam's studio in South Boston and got high.  In retrospect, it might have been better to have done everything in reverse.  Especially considering that I came home that evening to find Chang and Eng waiting to have our first "house meeting." 

Eng did all the talking while Chang fiddled on his laptop and occasionally looked up with a listless, sullen expression.  Eng had a little notebook and a number of post-its with little notes pecked out on them.

"I have a list," she announced.

Well, that definitely harshed my mellow.

"First of all," she launched right in, "how much can you hear us when we are in our room?"

"Everything," I said, without hesitation.

"Ohhh!" she made the animatronic receptionist face.

"Next question!" I barked.

"The bathroom is very... closed," she said, with a worried look.

There's absolutely no ventilation in the bathroom, it's true.  Jake used to just close the bathroom door after dropping a bomb, to lock in the flavor.  I don't know what he thought would happen when someone opened it up again.  It was like the car bomb episode of The Sarah Silverman Program.

I had some organic eucalyptus spray I'd cadged from the Orphanage, that seemed to sort of pretty up the stink.  It made it smell sort of like koala poo.  They're so cute and cuddly, how can you not love that smell? 

If koala scat's not your thing, light a match.  There's no pretension about it.  And truth is, I'd rather smell the sulfur from a match than some conjured-up candyass faux field of flowers with a picturesque stream of raw sewage running through it.  And while some say that the devil smells of sulfur, I think Febreze is the devil's perfume.

Anyway, I told them I'd kick in for a box of matches if they wanted.  Split the cost three-ways, of course.

Next!

The toilet has a weak flush, so sometimes it takes two or three for all the gore to go down.  Eng proposed maybe they shouldn't throw their toilet paper in it.

"Um." It was my turn to do the Animatronic Receptionist.  "Where else would your used toilet paper go, pray tell?"

It reminded me of my friends Csaba and Attila, who had let a flat in Budapest to an international student from Greece.  When the kid moved out and they cleaned the place for the next tenant, they found a rubbish bin and several trash bags stuffed with used TP.  Apparently, wherever he was from it was the custom not to flush it. 

"By all means, flush it," I urged them, and showed them how.

Here's when things starting getting personal.

"What is your schedule!" Eng demanded. 

"For the bathroom!" Chang clarified.

I told them when I left for work, which varies according to the days of the week.  Eng scribbled my schedule down in her notebook. I'm only in the office around 25 hours a week, and I don't work Mondays.

Eng issued one of her trademark grimaces.  My schedule seemed to offend her.

"Where do you work?" she asked, incredulous.

I told them I worked at a local college as an administrator.

"The administrator at my college must be at work every day from nine to five!" Eng declared.  "Why do not you work every day from nine to five?"

I shit you not. 

I shrugged. 

"It is not a job that need a lot of requirement," she muttered, looking down at her notes. 

"It does require some social skills," I said.  "They don't teach those at MIT, do they?"

(Incredibly enough, they do, but only as an elective.)

I asked them what they studied.  She's an electrical engineer and he does research into memory at MIT.  She works with monkeys, he works with mice.  And, she added, haughtily, they can go into the lab whenever they want.

"Well, then," I said brightly.  "We won't have any little traffic jams in the bathroom in the mornings!"

Next she asked me "why do you have so many books?"

This was starting to feel like talking to a four year old.

"we-e-e-ell," I said, "because I like books, and I like to read books."

"How long have you lived here?"

"Since December."

"Why do you have so many books here?"

I saw what she was getting at.

"Um," I searched for the clearest explanation. "Because I've liked books for a lo-o-o-ng time, even before last December!"

"What kind of books are they?" she demanded.

I pointed to a high-up shelf and said "well, those are mostly books about gardening."

"Why do you have books about gardening?" she asked.

"Because I have a garden," I answered.

Her eyes got big and unbelieving.  "Where?"

"Have you seen the gardens across the street?"

Of course they hadn't ventured out into the neighborhood at all.

I said the best time to check them out was between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m.

I asked them how long they had been in Boston.

"Five years," Eng proclaimed. "But only in Cambridge.  We live at the school."

They had lived in a dorm for five years. 

Why move out all the sudden? I asked her. (I figured I could venture a backhanded question or two.)

"I will graduate next September," she said, "and I want to see what it is like to live outside."

Ah, the Real Life Experiment.  Must be nice to have a choice in the matter, eh?

My final question: am I the monkey or the mouse?
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*Not his real name, but rhymes with it.
**See comments.