Don’t Argue When the Ultimate Makeover Team Arrives

When the $2 million Ultimate Makeover motor-home pulled up in front of my house at 3am on a Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago, I thought at first it was just a practical joke. A lot of my friends have chauffeur-driven 70-foot motorhomes and a penchant for early-Sunday joke-playing, so you can understand my initial confusion.

But no, this was the real thing. Here. At my house.

A hunky carpenter with a bullhorn hopped off the bus first, followed by a handful of drop-dead gorgeous designers, similar to the type we see on job sites pretty much every day. With a wave of his arm, there suddenly materialized a fleet of 1,630 additional trucks, vans, motor homes, Hummers, trailers, tanks, catering trucks, water trucks, tanker trucks, backhoes, forklifts, semis, ATVs, bulldozers, snowmobiles, lawnmowers, motorcycles, golf carts and cement trucks, along with 12 cargo helicopters, two container ships, an advertising blimp and—for reasons still not clear—a crop harvester.

“You’ve been selected by the Ultimate Makeover team for an Ultimate Makeover that will basically makeover your house in an ultimate-type way,” he bellowed through the bullhorn, even though I was standing two feet in front of him.

“We were all incredibly moved by your letter about how you do foster care for hundreds of rare three-legged Himalayan aardvarks rescued from war-torn Detroit, all in a 200-year-old home that is only 140 square feet and has no indoor plumbing and is lit by a single kerosene lamp with a bad wick. After we all finished crying and hugging each other—especially the drop-dead gorgeous designers—we high-tailed it right over here and we’re ready to get started!”

“But…”

“Just in the time we’ve been talking, our drop-dead gorgeous designers have prepared 200 pages of full-color design drawings, shopped at 85 different stores and made certain the camera crew has focused in on their cleavage at least 13 times. Simultaneously, our team of hunky carpenters have taken off their shirts and flexed a lot, hired two obnoxious, overweight local contractors and assembled a crew of 13,642 completely unskilled laborers with crowbars, chainsaws and a really, really big wrench.”

“But…”

“I know, I know—exciting, huh! Now, go pack, because we’re sending you off to beautiful downtown Portland for the rest of the day. By the time you get back this afternoon, we will have torn down your existing shack, graded the lot, drilled a new well, installed two new septic systems, built a 15,000-square-foot, three-story home, added two guest houses, installed an Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool with a 200-foot waterfall, brought in and planted a couple hundred ancient 300-foot redwood trees, put in four lighted tennis courts and a baseball diamond with seating for 20,000, excavated a 12-mile series of underground tunnels for the aardvarks to play in, dredged out a 40-acre lake and surrounded it with a mountain range, and, for no particular reason, threw in an airstrip that is FAA-approved for landing 747s.”

“But…”

“You bet it’s overwhelming! I’ve had four heart attacks just yelling at you about it! Now that will take the first three hours of the day. While that’s going on, our team of hunky, shirtless carpenters will build you 200 bookcases, 350 feet of walnut cabinetry, wine storage sufficient to house the output of the Napa Valley for the next five years, and a new front door, all with just a Swiss Army knife and a single 2x4.”

“But…”

“Yeah, I don’t know how they do it either. The rolling cabinet shop and 700 cabinet makers they tow behind them might have something to do with it, but who knows. Finally, our drop-dead gorgeous designers will lead their little army of 4,000 unattractive helpers through your house, completely furnishing it with hundreds of priceless antiques they purchased all over Europe for just $37! And throughout it all, they’ll cutely complain about how they don’t have enough time to finish everything, while still managing to flash lots of cleavage and cavort with the hunky, flexing, shirtless carpenters.”

“But…” I expected to get cut off again, but he had paused to clean the spit out of his bullhorn, so I rushed ahead. “But, you have the wrong house.”

“Oh. Never mind.” And in a flash, he and his entourage were gone, leaving behind a single donut and half a bottle of water.

Too bad. The tennis courts would have been nice.