Shopping for a home is all about the snooping

If homeownership is still the American dream, shopping for a home is America's true pastime.
The home search combines such American ideals as cheaping out for the best deal, pretending to consider purchases one simply cannot afford and snooping through other people's business. And as a potential homebuyer, let me tell you: It's all about the snooping.
The process starts innocently enough.
Frugal basic-cable subscribers have access to a very limited number of channels. On most weeknights, options include the C-SPAN feed of congressional paint drying or a book. But the realty channel provides entertainment anytime.
Broadcasting 24 hours a day, the realty channel is a low-budget slideshow cycle of home listings, complete with a realtor-speak voiceovers. At any given time I can tune into this home-shopping network for a window into other people's kitchens and living rooms, replete with Berber carpet and neutral decor.
Every evening, the remote finds its way to this hypnotic, trance-inducing channel. Hours go by, filled with great rooms, bi-levels, triple-crown molding and Corian countertops. Unspeakable choices in furniture and drapery parade across the screen. Nearly every kitchen cabinet is draped in faux ivy. All in all, it's not a terrible way to spend a Tuesday night.
But eventually, it starts to get to you.
Eventually, you're watching the channel with some interest. That's a pretty good price for that neighborhood. Are those hardwood or laminate floors? A little drywall and a coat of paint could really do wonders here.
Interest rates are pretty low. It's definitely a buyer's market. Maybe it's time to get out of this place and move on.
It doesn't take long before you've got an agent, a handful of listings and a schedule. And it doesn't take much longer before you realize that buying a home is expensive, but looking through people's stuff is free.
Home listings on television are only a passing pleasure compared with the experience of actually walking through the home and seeing for yourself the stained wallpapers and nautically themed bathrooms. Who knows what horrors lurk behind that shower curtain? The person touring your over-priced home, that's who.
No tchotchke goes unnoticed, no refrigerator photo unogled. Collegiate degrees are examined and wedding dresses judged. Items lost in the basement for years are carefully catalogued. Though no one would admit it, the true American dream is a lockbox on every doorknob and unfettered access to your neighbor's attic.
After a week or so, it may begin to feel slightly unethical, if not wholly immoral, to judge thy neighbors on the contents of their crawl spaces. The feeling passes, however, with the understanding that you will ultimately choose one of these homes and spend up to 30 years paying for the privilege to strip its wallpaper and pull its stained carpets.
If that doesn't convince you, consider the fate of your current dwelling. Soon, it too will be featured on the endless realty-channel loop. And soon, it too shall be judged.
When was the last time you changed your shower curtain, anyway?

(Ben Grabow writes for the young, the urban and the easily amused. Contact him at thinlyread(at)gmail.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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