When I sat down to breakfast Sunday morning with my Parade magazine as I usually do, I found an article that was quite disturbing. The title was “How to make your home sell faster.” The more I read, the more depressed I became. For instance: The first item was “Scrub till it sparkles!” You’re apparently supposed to vacuum under the bed, behind the couch, wash all the windows inside and out, scour ceiling fans and polish doorknobs. Well, it’s hard vacuuming under the bed, so why do it? And behind the couch – my couch is too heavy to move away from the wall so I don’t vacuum there. The only thing behind the couch is my spider trap – a long piece of yellow paper with sticky stuff on it that hasn’t caught one spider in three years. I stuck my finger in it one time by accident, and almost ended up in it for good. And washing windows inside and out? I live in a condo and someone else washes the outside. I wash the inside when summer comes and the light shines on all the grime on the windows. After I wash them, they always have streaks, so I do it again which just moves the streaks around and around. I guess I’ll not try to sell my condo in the summer when light comes in. My new motto is “A dark house is a happy house.”

Another item was: “Clobber the clutter!” You’re supposed to get rid of anything personal such as wedding pictures, kid’s trophies, college banners and other collectibles. If you don’t have storage someplace out of sight, rent a storage space somewhere. Like I could afford to rent a storage space – I can barely pay my condo fee that seems to keep going up. And that’s another thing – why do condo fees go up and never go down? And why would anyone even buy a condo, knowing there would be a fee that grows faster than your kids do? The purpose of the storage space is to put nearly everything you own in it to make your house look as if you weren’t even living there so that potential buyers would feel at home, just as if it were their home. That whole idea seems a little freaky to me. Are you supposed to live like that forever until you sell the house, or do you move everything back after “open house?” What if someone wants to see it at an inopportune time – do you take everything out again and hurry to find another storage space?

Another item: “Pay attention to details.” This means fixing leaky faucets, buying fresh towels and patching the hole in the wall where someone stuck his fist through it one night after partying too much. I haven’t purchased new towels for years and don’t plan to now. Also, the toilet lids should be down and no wastebaskets in sight. No wastebaskets? Soft music should be playing on all the radios in the house – all on the same station. Should it be soft rock, elevator music, the Carpenters, LL Cool J – how would you go about appealing to everyone that might look through your house? And the best one is to alphabetize your spice jars and line up all your shoes in your closet. My spice jars are in a rather high cupboard and have never been alphabetized. I’m lucky to be able to reach any of them. Are prospective buyers going to be checking your spices – won’t they have their own? If you actually followed all these suggestions, you could possibly become so enamored with such a perfect home that you might be tempted to buy it yourself . . . even though you already own it! This is just too confusing. I must go lie down and rest . . . maybe watch a little “Seinfeld” or “Law & Order.”