Dear World: I Am Going to Be Murdered in This Garage

Adventures in buying a big, old, weird house as a woman by myself, CONTINUED.

I’m Ash, and I’m a writer, traveler, nonconformist & nomad, and every week I’m sharing funny field notes from around the world. Currently, I’m in America writing about what it’s been like to return home to my small town, twenty years after living abroad.

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Last night I heard sounds coming from the garage in this new farmhouse I bought in the country and I had to remind myself that I am a strong woman and it’s fucking fine and it’s probably just a woodchuck or raccoon or mass murderer (or something) so I turned on every single exterior flood light I have and pounded on the garage door and then had a mild heart attack and went to sleep with a buck knife next to my bed. 😂

Now it’s morning. The sun is shining. So I go outside with my green muck boots on (they’re olive) and I bring my coffee onto the porch and it’s all sunny and and sweet and everything looks totally safe and innocent and I’m all OOOOOH, FRESH AIRRRRRR and suddenly I like this place again, which is saying something because there have been many days where I’m like WHAT HAVE I DONE. And then I remember that what I have done is called living, and there’s something to be said about diving in, tits first, when it comes to big, scary things, and isn’t it funny that most people are scared to go to Nicaragua or Colombia or Mexico or Chile or all of the places I traipsed through for years with a tube of red lipstick and total, blissful naivete—and yet for me, the idea of purchasing this regular old wooden house on a regular five-acre plot of land surrounded by hemlocks and woodpeckers and deer is just SO RADICAL???

Anyway, so I’m sitting out here in my morning bliss and suddenly I hear it again: the sound.

The same sound from last night.

Like someone is rummaging around in the garage.

It sounds like they are throwing nails, hammers, drill bits, cans of soda against the wall. (Because apparently I have a garage. And in the garage there are tools. And now I am supposed to, uh, use them?)

The adrenaline pumps. I stand up like a Viking warrior, despite the fact that I’m a human terrier dog, tongue out, armed with a popsicle stick and pair of fluffy slippers. It’s cute that I actually start to walk menacingly toward the garage like I’m actually going to confront this person / goblin / Ted Bundy who has no respect for my peace of mind / cortisol levels / fact that I am really just a nice girl who wants to wallpaper some walls in a print I will regret.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god.

I keep walking toward the garage like I’m Hans Fucking Solo. I pause, briefly, remembering that THERE ARE BEARS. Yes, hi, there are black bears everywhere here where I’ve purchased these five acres of land—yet another exciting perk.

I tiptoe my way closer, fully aware that I am the idiot in the horror movie when we’re all shouting “he’s behind the curtain! RUN!” and yet they just walk right toward the door where the killer’s hiding in a pair of olive green muck boots.

THWACK!

Oh, this sadistic bitch. Not even trying to hide. Not even trying to conceal their criminal activity! Just brazenly over there rifiling through my things. What are they looking for, a Huffy bike from 1996? A jumbo-sized pack of moth balls? A long-lost set of rubies and jewels? (I loaned them to the royal family decades ago.)

I think about calling my new neighbor, a blonde chick in her 30s who probably weighs 100 pounds and could be a contestant on Miss America—but ALSO runs a horse farm like a military sergeant and is certified to butcher pigs, cows, chickens and some other red-blooded mammal that I can’t remember. Next to her, I am an incompetent scab. Though, I love being an incompetent scab. It means there is still so much in the world for me to learn.

THWACK!

Why are you not in London right now, eating a scone? Why aren’t you driving around Scotland right now, drinking a whisky? (Maybe not at the same time.) Why are you not doing the kinds of things you know how to do, like wear blazers that make you seem like you actually know how the game of polo is played, or sit in the wrong seat on a train?

I hear it again.

Louder.

LOUDER STILL.

And then, I see something out of the corner of my eye. It’s being hurled at my head. It’s coming toward me, fast.

It drops at my feet.

THWACK!

Then another.

THWACK!

I look up, in total disbelief, at what I see next.

It’s not a bear—this, I can confirm. It’s not a racoon or any of the other members of Noah’s Ark. And, it’s not a mass murderer either, to our mutual disappointment.

I bend down and pick up the object.

It is hard. It is big. It is mighty. It’s covered in something sticky. [looks around innocently]

I recognize this.

It’s been years since I’ve touched one. [Oh god, somebody help.]

Years since I’ve thought about these.

THWACK!

And just like that, I start to laugh…at first, quietly. And then, uncontrollably. The kind where you’re twelve years old again.

The pine cones fall like hail, as if they are bricks.

Another one smashes down on the metal roof.

I take a deep breath.

Most scary things are just pinecones, in the end.

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P.S. Not to belabor this whole pinecone thing, but did you know there are female pine cones, and male pine cones?! I DID NOT KNOW THIS. I did some very risqué Googling—a little recon on my new perpetrator—and unearthed an article titled, “The Secret Lives of Pine Cones.” And oh boy, let me tell you what: do they have a secret life! The female pine cones are the ones we’re familiar with, with their spiky scales and their cute little button butt. The males, on the other hand, look a little bit like a nibbled off ear of corn. Nobody sees those clingy fuckers. They stay up in the tree, hangin’ out, shooting off their pollen for all the world to gather. The females, on the other hand, open their scales and hope some of it lands on them—sort of like being covered in catcher’s mitts. (I’m glad I only have one v???) The female pine cone closes her scales when it’s cold, to protect the seeds, and opens them when it’s warm again. Over time, pollinated seeds will ripen and fall to the ground—and, folks, THIS IS HOW A NEW PINE TREE IS PRODUCED. After two or three years, however, the mother will die—and then she will fall to the ground.

So, apparently, I have a bunch of dead mothers falling on my roof.

And, that’s enough to scare anybody.