I’ve gotten away from looking at houses pretty much by now; where we are is a good place to retire to. You want a medical specialist who’s seen unusual cases? Can’t do much better than Stanford.

But my cousins got me to look at this 1908 Victorian just because...

It’s lovely, even if a bit of a mishmash of remodeling years. One cousin describes the master bath as having an altar to the sacred tub.

The washer and dryer inside the master closet, though: Illinois doesn’t have enough humidity to make your clothes smell mildewy? It will there.

And then you get to picture #32.

There’s no warning in the description, nothing to tip you off.

It’s too big to go through any door or window in that room so I say it came through the roof and they just dealt with the wood right then and there ages ago, waste not, want not, and made it look on purpose and the ceiling and roof to match. For all I know the bedroom set was carved out of the bottom of the trunk.

Husband and daughter say it looks too nice so clearly they didn’t use power tools on it in the bedroom so surely it was installed on purpose after the fact.

But why? And how? And then how do you even get to the closet? Did they do it for a parrot? A cat? Can you imagine how much fun one’s pet could have jumping off that onto your face in the middle of the night? Meowabunga!

I have questions.