Complex Numbers

Dream Home

Gah! It's almost the end of the month already. Again.

PROMPT May 29th

When I was little, I dreamed of living in a treehouse surrounded by a pool with a spiral staircase going up the middle of the trunk. In your second to last entry of the month, write about your dream home. Describe the rooms in your fantasy house and any unique characteristics. Be creative!

"Be creative." It's hard to come up with a two-word sentence that strikes more fear into my stony heart, except maybe "I do."

There's been pushback in recent years against the trend of ever-growing housing. "McMansions," they call them, cookie cutter castles in usually gated subdivisions with tyrannical homeowner's associations. Well, there is no way I'd ever live in a place with a homeowner's association, not if I have any choice in the matter at all. But I've always wanted a gargantuan house.

I know I'm supposed to want a "tiny house," which is the modern euphemism for "trailer." That's the form the abovementioned pushback takes these days. Nope. I need room. Not just for my stuff, but I'm home almost all the time so I want to look at different walls sometimes. In typical American binary fashion, these closet-sized domiciles are touted as the one and only antidote for McMansions. Apparently, I'm the only one who thinks that a middle ground is not only possible, but desirable: having a modest-sized home with a few rooms, rather than being owned by a modern incarnation of a king's palace, or living in a space smaller than my friend's shoe closet (yes, she has an entire room devoted to her footwear collection). Or maybe the tiny house manufacturers have an enormous advertising budget, which leads me to believe that such trailers are way overpriced.

But the mid-sized house is my reality, not my fantasy. In reality, I wouldn't want anything much bigger or smaller than what I've got right now, because I'm not wealthy enough to have staff.

No, my dream home is a supervillain lair.

Cut deep into the bones of a mountain, this would be a massive underground complex with hundreds of rooms, a spaceport, a helipad, and a missile silo. I'd have guards and flying drones patrolling the perimeter at all times (on a randomly rotating schedule), and a household staff consisting of scantily-clad supermodels. Most importantly, the air ducts would be crisscrossed by thick titanium bars at regular intervals, so the protagonist can't use the tired old "sneak in through the air vents" trope.

I'd need a dungeon, of course, to imprison my enemies, and an interrogation room (use your imagination) to extract information from them. There would have to be a movie theater with Dolby surround sound and 3D capability, an Olympic-sized swimming pool (as well as an infinity pool elsewhere), a bowling alley, and a skating rink. I don't skate, but I'd watch my staff do it, assuming I decide they can have some time off.

As for the other features, well, in addition to the obvious like a kitchen, several bathrooms with gold fixtures, and a gargantuan master bedroom (in the broadest sense of the word "master"), a well-stocked library would be a requirement; I may be evil, but I read. And a bar. Not just any bar, though, but a drafthouse with 100 taps and a large selection of wine and spirits. I might even let some of the staff use it.

I'd be tempted to put in a Starbuck's, but I really hate coffee.

Don't forget the broadband internet. Can't take over the world without it.

Oh, and I'll need a Planning Room. Maybe two Planning Rooms. You can't come up with dastardly plans if you don't have a room in which to concoct them. The reason I'd need two is that one would be like a conference room where I can brainstorm with my most trusted minions, before they attempt to betray me and I have them sent to the dungeon. The other would be dark and foreboding, with just one black chair in the middle on which I could sit and brood.

Yes, a supervillain lair would suit me quite nicely. But I'll settle for my modest split-foyer on the edge of town. There's a marginally lower chance of it being nuked from orbit.