Why I won't buy my dream house when the neighbors are flying MAGA flags.

-

 I can overlook ugly carpet. I can paint over walls the color of old mustard. I can even live with a kitchen designed by someone who apparently hated both cooking and human movement.

But if I pull up to a house and the neighbors are flying MAGA flags, I’m going to keep driving.

People will say, “It’s just a flag.”  So were the Nazi flags, if you believe that logic.

That is what flags are for. They tell you what someone wants you to know about them. A garden gnome tells me you enjoy whimsy. An Auburn football flag tells me you make questionable decisions on Sundays. A MAGA flag tells me something I would rather learn before signing a thirty-year mortgage.

I’m not asking every neighbor to agree with me. I’ve lived among people with different politics all my life. We can disagree about taxes, road repairs, and whether the town needs another Dollar General. We can wave across the fence and complain together when the trash pickup is late.

But I’m buying more than a roof and a patch of yard. I’m buying the place where I’ll walk outside in my pajamas, bring groceries home, invite people I love over, and try to feel at ease. The houses next door are part of that decision. So are the messages their owners choose to display.

Maybe the flag-flying neighbor would lend me a ladder. Maybe they make excellent pie. I have no way of knowing. I do know they’ve chosen to make their politics the first thing I see when I come home. And the first thing my guests see when they visit.  And I’m allowed to decide I don’t want to come home to that every day, nor do I want to expose people I love to that hate. 

House hunting is already an expensive game of what fresh nonsense is behind this drywall? I refuse to add “will I be comfortable living between campaign headquarters and a personality cult?” to the inspection checklist.

So no, I won’t buy that house. I’ll thank the agent, refuse to leave the car, drive away, and look for a street where the loudest thing in the front yards is somebody’s wind chimes.

Those might drive me insane, too. But at least I can ask the wind to knock it off.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Apartment Sammich: A Field Report from the Kitty NASCAR Nationals 500

-
Image
I live in the second-floor middle unit of a three-story apartment building. Which means I am not upstairs or downstairs. I am structurally compromised . Above me live two women. Heavyset A-Ganger types. When they move, the ceiling doesn’t creak — it registers seismic activity . They don’t walk. They advance . It sounds like two moose learning to Riverdance while wearing work boots and making eye contact with God. I have accepted this. Because acceptance is cheaper than therapy. Below me live people. Quiet people. Hopeful people. People who thought, “The second floor seems reasonable.” These people were wrong. Because between these layers of humanity exists me . And my cats. Enter Captain Thunderpaws — a lean, tactical menace with a thousand-yard stare and a deep mistrust of inanimate objects — and his sister, a plush, gravity-honoring loaf who runs like a beanbag chair with dreams. Together, they have unionized and designated the hours between 4 and 5 a.m. as prime time for the Kit...
Read more

🔥 The Torchbearers: A Call to the Witches Who Stayed

-
Image
  This isn’t for the trend-chasers. This isn’t for the moon-phase influencers, the aesthetic covens, or the ones who skimmed a Llewellyn book and declared themselves a High Priestess on Tuesday. This is for the ones who stayed . The witches who ran public rituals and built community spaces on shoestring budgets. The ones who got their degrees in theology, anthropology, history—anything to understand the bones of what we do. The ones who studied by candlelight, held circles in basements and backyards, and never once filmed themselves doing it for clout. You know who you are. You’ve been looked down on for not dressing the part. For stepping outside in jeans and a t-shirt instead of flowing robes and Instagram filters. For walking through metaphysical shops and not needing to announce your power—because it lives in your bones. You’ve had fifteen-year-olds talk over you on social media, dismissing your decades of practice because they watched a tarot video or learned abo...
Read more

The View from the Throne.

-
Image
Every once in a while, someone wanders into a space that isn’t theirs and decides they’re going to poison the well. You know the type. The sideways comments. The passive-aggressive whispers. The subtle little digs meant to make people doubt themselves. It’s the oldest trick in the book. If you can’t build something meaningful, you try to rot what someone else built. Here’s the funny part though. That strategy only works when the person on the receiving end is insecure, isolated, or desperate for approval. I am none of those things. I see the behavior. I see the pattern. And I see exactly what it is: insecurity dressed up as cleverness. Let me say something clearly for anyone who might need to hear it. Communities are not built by people who lurk in corners throwing shade. They’re built by people who show up, do the work, create things, support others, and keep going even when the path gets messy. That’s the difference. You can throw all the little barbs you want, but the reality is s...
Read more