For many the great American dream is to own their own business. There are literally thousands of
choices one could make.
For instance, maybe somebody wants to own a Dairy Queen. (This is something that’s always appealed to me but I’d be afraid of being caught with my lips wrapped around the chocolate custard dispenser.) Or another wants to open an adult bookstore. Perhaps another wants to open a new specialty enterprise like a superstore for women’s hygiene products. These are all admirable desires – especially the last two. However, somewhere out there is somebody who would like to open a Bed & Breakfast. To them I say, “What kind of asshole did your parent’s raise?”
Some have become the recipient of a beautiful old homes left to them by their favorite Aunt we’ll call Elsie. When Elsie and her late husband Elmer (sound like a couple of famous bovines, don’t
Al Vinikour
they?) built their dream house in the 1920s they wanted something that would be passed down to their children, grandchildren or other family members.
There was the obligatory parlor, a quaint kitchen, a lace-laden dining room, a sitting room and a number of bedrooms. Even a bathroom or two. Let’s use the example I’ve started and say the house is now owned by a couple of gentle souls named Bradley and Muffy Diver. They both work as substance abuse counselors for the Church of the Realm of Heaven. Some call them do-gooders; others call them dickheads. That said, one night after reading the bible they talked about doing something with the big house. Both had always had the dream of owning their own Bed & Breakfast so this was a sign from Krom (or whatever God they happen to worship at the time).
So for the next nine months the Divers spend every spare minute and every spare dollar preparing 
their edifice to open to the traveling public. Finally the big day comes. Appropriately it opens on Valentine’s Day and they receive their first guests – the president of the Killers Motorcycle Club and his old lady. They “seemed nice” so Muffy assigned them to a room on the upper level. After a night of nonstop drinking and loud, hot Harley sex they clomped down the stairs, plopped themselves on their hog and roared on down the road.
As Muffy went upstairs to clean the room she was horrified to discover that everything in the room had either been broken or overturned. The antique wash basin that was once owned by George Washington’s whore was laying on the floor in a thousand pieces; the hand-loomed sheets were so ripped and mutilated it looked like the bed was the scene of (pardon the pun) a cock fight; and the drapes had apparently been used as a “love sponge.”
What’s the purpose of detailing what is probably a common occurrence? I’ll tell you, Barry. Why would anybody allow perfect strangers (or imperfect strangers for that matter) to have the run of their lovely home? They make their parents take their shoes off when they come over so there won’t be a chance of scuffing the beautiful hardwood floors…but allowed the bikers to walk around the house wearing engineer boots. Potpourri had been lovingly put throughout the house so it would have a pleasant scent but yet their guests stunk up the bathroom so bad that it would take industrial-strength AirWick to make the upstairs habitable.
Again, pardon the pun, but I’m not just blowing smoke out of my ass. When I was a kid my great-grandparents owned a tourist home – the early version of a B & B. I always worried about them because they were elderly and there were some pretty unsavory-looking characters who lived 
there. Fortunately they never experienced any harm but it was a much-different time and people weren’t quite the animals like those who roam the streets now. There are enough questionable members of your own family who shouldn’t be trusted under the same roof with decent people. You wouldn’t loan out your new Buick for strangers to use for the day…but you’ll welcome them into a $300,000 historical Victorian home.
By the way…as a follow-up to the Bradley and Muffy story…they spent more of their money to put things back together and vowed to be more selective in who they rented out their guest rooms to. Several weeks later a lovely old couple stopped by and said they were so drawn to this “wonderful old house” that they had to stay there for a night. Overcome with the emotion of the moment that’s so prevalent among people like the Divers they of course welcomed these blessed senior citizens into their home. It was during the family-style dinner of free-range eggplant and organic greens that they discovered the nice old pair were really escaped psychopaths from the state prison. Far from being vegetarians, the older couple brutally murdered their hosts and spent the next three days eating them, gathering their bones and donating them to a puppy mill.
But then again…who am I to tell you what to do with your money and your dreams?
Al’s column returns to its regular place on Monday now that he’s returning from yet another trip where he found a number of things to complain about.
