went out with Stephen Mungers I would be wholly incapable of being the person I should be and, in fact, was. A similar effect occurs when I walk into a house where not one square inch of floor is showing.
Carpet is Mungers. Carpet is otherness. It is not my house and not the house of ninety percent of the people I know. It’s more than just not my style, it’s not my oeuvre. People always say to me, “Oh, I don’t like carpet either. It makes me sneeze and it’s so hard to clean.” Sneezing and cleaning have nothing to do with my feelings on the subject. If not having carpet caused allergies and presented maintenance difficulties, I would tough it out. It’s really shallow, I know. But I’m capable of being extremely shallow, far more superficial that I’m often given credit for. There’s a lot of stuff I can look past—unemployed boyfriends, borderline personalities, offensive comments aimed directly at me—but when I balk, I balk hard. When you get to a certain age you learn what the deal breakers are.
But let’s cut to the chase. Carpet is a class issue. I didn’t make it that way, I’m just pointing it out. And I’m not talking about socioeconomic class. Carpet has, since its inception, been the province of the elite. It’s found in high-rise condos and suburban ranch houses. Cheap landlords like to install cheap carpet in cheap rentals so they can raise the price—and it amazes and depresses me that people actually buy into this. But I also realize that many of the people who don’t mind or even like carpet possess the kind of “class” that, in my earlier days, I believed ran in inverse proportion to wall-to-wall floor covering of any kind. In other words, I did not believe that they read books, owned classical music CDs, or were not necessarily members of the John Birch Society.
That false perception was the result of confusing “having class” with “having to have class.” The kind of class that I associate with wood floors is the kind of class that emerges out of an anxiety about being classy. People who must have wood floors are people who need to convey the message that they’re quite possibly better than most people. They’re people who leave the New York Review of Books on the coffee table but keep People in the bedroom. They’re people who say “I don’t need to read Time or Newsweek because I can get everything I need from the Times. ” They’re people who would no sooner put the television set in the living room than hang their underwear to dry on the front porch. They buy whole-bean coffee and grind it in a Braun grinder. They listen to NPR, tell other people what they heard on it, and are amazed when the other people say they heard it too.
I am one of those people. My TV is in a room that also contains a pile of magazines I won’t admit to reading, a Kenny Loggins CD I don’t want anyone to see, and a Restoration Hardware catalog from which I want very much to order a Teacher’s College Chrome Plate Schoolhouse light, if only Restoration Hardware was not so wannabe, so postiche. My apartment has oak floors and oriental rugs and, for as long as I can remember, oak floors and oriental rugs have played as great a role in my sense of well-being as the knowledge that after falling asleep I would eventually wake up. I haven’t bought a can of Maxwell House in over ten years. I have an intellectual crush on former Talk Of The Nation host Ray Suarez and a WNYC coffee mug out of which I eat Grape-Nuts but never Total. I use Arm & Hammer laundry powder. The thought of owning a bed that is not a platform bed, i.e. one that has a box spring and therefore requires a dust ruffle, lowers my seratonin level. I do not wear colors any brighter than pale blue or dusty rose. I do not wear panty hose, only tights. I do not wear gold jewelry. I would never drive an American car. I stick to these rules because I am terrified of what would happen if I deviated from them. I fear the
Carpet is Mungers. Carpet is otherness. It is not my house and not the house of ninety percent of the people I know. It’s more than just not my style, it’s not my oeuvre. People always say to me, “Oh, I don’t like carpet either. It makes me sneeze and it’s so hard to clean.” Sneezing and cleaning have nothing to do with my feelings on the subject. If not having carpet caused allergies and presented maintenance difficulties, I would tough it out. It’s really shallow, I know. But I’m capable of being extremely shallow, far more superficial that I’m often given credit for. There’s a lot of stuff I can look past—unemployed boyfriends, borderline personalities, offensive comments aimed directly at me—but when I balk, I balk hard. When you get to a certain age you learn what the deal breakers are.
But let’s cut to the chase. Carpet is a class issue. I didn’t make it that way, I’m just pointing it out. And I’m not talking about socioeconomic class. Carpet has, since its inception, been the province of the elite. It’s found in high-rise condos and suburban ranch houses. Cheap landlords like to install cheap carpet in cheap rentals so they can raise the price—and it amazes and depresses me that people actually buy into this. But I also realize that many of the people who don’t mind or even like carpet possess the kind of “class” that, in my earlier days, I believed ran in inverse proportion to wall-to-wall floor covering of any kind. In other words, I did not believe that they read books, owned classical music CDs, or were not necessarily members of the John Birch Society.
That false perception was the result of confusing “having class” with “having to have class.” The kind of class that I associate with wood floors is the kind of class that emerges out of an anxiety about being classy. People who must have wood floors are people who need to convey the message that they’re quite possibly better than most people. They’re people who leave the New York Review of Books on the coffee table but keep People in the bedroom. They’re people who say “I don’t need to read Time or Newsweek because I can get everything I need from the Times. ” They’re people who would no sooner put the television set in the living room than hang their underwear to dry on the front porch. They buy whole-bean coffee and grind it in a Braun grinder. They listen to NPR, tell other people what they heard on it, and are amazed when the other people say they heard it too.
I am one of those people. My TV is in a room that also contains a pile of magazines I won’t admit to reading, a Kenny Loggins CD I don’t want anyone to see, and a Restoration Hardware catalog from which I want very much to order a Teacher’s College Chrome Plate Schoolhouse light, if only Restoration Hardware was not so wannabe, so postiche. My apartment has oak floors and oriental rugs and, for as long as I can remember, oak floors and oriental rugs have played as great a role in my sense of well-being as the knowledge that after falling asleep I would eventually wake up. I haven’t bought a can of Maxwell House in over ten years. I have an intellectual crush on former Talk Of The Nation host Ray Suarez and a WNYC coffee mug out of which I eat Grape-Nuts but never Total. I use Arm & Hammer laundry powder. The thought of owning a bed that is not a platform bed, i.e. one that has a box spring and therefore requires a dust ruffle, lowers my seratonin level. I do not wear colors any brighter than pale blue or dusty rose. I do not wear panty hose, only tights. I do not wear gold jewelry. I would never drive an American car. I stick to these rules because I am terrified of what would happen if I deviated from them. I fear the
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