Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Unreal Estate

So I'm on the phone with our real estate agent, who happens to be a family friend, when the following conversation occurs:

"Does your house have any special features?"

"Oh, yeah. It's fully wired for cat 5 and coax with a central switcher in the basement."

"Anything else?"

"There's a generator room in the garage for a backup generator. It's already wired up to code and has a nice muffler system installed. We can leave the generator if the buyer wants it. I also installed some heavy duty wiring for my welding gear and the bomb shelter."

-pause-

"A bomb shelter?"

"Yeah, there's a ten by fifteen bomb shelter off the basement TV room. Reinforced concrete, air vents, steel door...the whole deal."

"Er...where we watched movies? That room?"

"Yeah."

"How do you get to the bomb shelter?"

"Through the door. It's hidden behind the shelving with all the books and DVDs."

-pause-

"Okay. Uh...so why do you have a bomb shelter with a hidden entrance?"

"Because somebody built it. From the junk we found inside I'd guess back in the fifties."

"Do you use it?"

"Yeah, it's where I play my guitar. I installed the wiring to power my amps. Even with the levels cranked up you can't hear it in the house."

"So you have an underground bomb shelter with a secret entrance and heavy duty wiring so you can play a guitar?"

-pause-

"Well, yeah. I don't play very well."

-pause-

"I think we might want to leave out the bomb shelter in the listing. If anyone seems interested in that kind of thing we'll tell them about it, but otherwise I'm going to describe it as a wine cellar."