Voyeurism and the Dog Walk

I have a new hobby. It’s something I find myself doing on my daily dog walk, which is like a fog walk, but a little faster, with a dog and there’s no fog. I’m usually out with Link around dusk, listening to a podcast. As it starts to get dark, people turn their inside lights on and I can see inside their houses. Yup, I’m a creepy dog walking nosey nelly. In my defense, these people could close their blinds or draw their curtains. They obviously want me to peek inside.

We live in a pretty nice neighborhood. Though our house is not one of the nice ones and we really live right on the edge of the neighborhood. My dog walk route takes me into the heart of the $700K house area. Some houses are surprising. Like a really nice looking house and when I see the kitchen, it’s in serious need of an upgrade. Mostly, when I see kitchens there is a fair amount of granite and stainless steel. I did see one kitchen that looked very similar to our kitchen when we bought our house. Think wood paneling, crappy brown veneer cabinets and lots of orange an yellow. Poor bastards.

On my dog walk, I spend time contemplating the decorating choices I see along the way. Sure, not everybody can have a giant map of Middle Earth, a replica of Sting (the sword not the singer) along with some tin Futurama propaganda signs and a wall of assorted children's toys that would make a preschool look as bare as a marine barracks in comparison. I see that the fancy house set seems to enjoy fake flowers. My favorite decorating choice (I’ve seen this everywhere) is the fancy waste paper basket, or for the table top a vase, full of really long sticks. A lot of houses have pictures in frames hanging on the walls. I think they call it “art.” One house has a nice horse picture on the wall, it’s effect is negated by the fake flowers in the room. I did see one room that was devoid of any decoration complete with white walls. There was a couch and a t.v. in the room and that was about it. I think they were going for the Willy Wonka look of the room where the kid gets shrunk into the t.v. set.

Pretty much every dog walk I see an old lady walking around outside in a house coat. I don’t think it’s the same lady each time. One time, on our street even, I saw a lady in a moo moo type dress. She wasn’t really old enough or fat enough that she has an excuse for wearing that thing. But I still thought it was awesome.