Interview the person below you

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I don't know any sitcoms except really old ones like Friends or Mad About You.

Do you know how to use a drill?

I can use a drill, but I try not to whenever possible because I'd probably drill a hole in my finger or something.

What is the best thing that happened to you in the last week?

My partner came home.


same q

Living arrangements became a bit easier following a temporary change of circumstances.

Do you know how to make paper planes?

No, I think I was able to make paper planes as a kid, but I have forgotten how to now.

Same question.

Yes, but they don’t fly far.

Which word do you misuse most often?

I ‘m guilty of saying “literally” a lot when I don’t actually mean literally. I also often use the wrong version of there/their when I am typing quickly.

Same question

Probably something like "like" or "gonna"--something that's technically wrong but everyone uses it.

Same question.

I deliberately misuse the word vestibule a lot. I know what it means but I like to use it as a stand-in word if I'm not sure of a correct word or just can't reach one quickly enough. It often sounds like the right word, even when it isn't. In my family we do a lot of wordplay and nonsense so there's probably others but that's one I regularly misuse.

Do you have/have you ever had a cupboard under a staircase in your home? How do/did you feel about it?

Yes, a shoe cupboard.

It is... functional.

Same question.

I asked how you feel about it blitzkreig. Explore the darkness under your stairs. What dwells in there? Do you ever sense the darkness behind the door as you pass by? Does a chill leak out from the cracks around it? Do you ever slump back on the door and shudder with relief when you close it again after replacing your shoes? What does that strangely shaped cupboard mean to you? Dig deep. Cry if you need to. This is a safe space.

As a child I had this Fisher Price dollhouse with a staircase as shown below.






The staircase opened on the back, but they fail to show this in the current picture to prevent mass hysteria from Gen X'ers who will wax nostalgic about the covert bourgeoise, capitalist, racial, and gender-conditioning that house represented. Personally, I loved the stairs because I loved small hiding places even though I'd need to cut off my legs like the Little People, to fit in it. The rest of the house seemed a bit over-manufactured, but maybe that's just me. Plus I'm not a fan of yellow.

When I was 13 and thought I was cool enough to start smoking, I hid my cigarettes in the stairs of the dollhouse on my top shelf. They might still be there with a few stray crumbs of dead tobacco.

My parents had an under-the-stairs which I did get to use as a fort. It smelled like Lysol spray and my dad's old snowmobile suits. Elton John and I lived there for a while before we made our own home out of bedsheets, prior to me divorcing him for Ozzy. My mother now uses the space for mounds of vintage 60s Christmas decorations. Sometimes she gets trapped in there trying to grab some balls. We've had to rescue her from the far back. One time when I didn't even live there anymore I lost my car keys and she's so OCD she searched her whole house, including the space under the stairs.

The search was unfruitful despite her best intention.

My current house has an under-the-stairs which is also full of Christmas stuff, but it's not as tidy as my mother's. There's also some Guitar Hero guitars, seasonal door wreaths, and an occasional, tiny, mummified piece of cat pooh which has been wrist-shotted under the door by my cats who play pooh hockey.

How do I feel about my mother's stairs? Profound nostalgia. Sometimes when I'm having an existential crisis about men, bears, or car keys, I find myself trembling in front of its door or poking my head inside for a therapeutic whiff.

My own stairs? Meh. The space doesn't smell like snowmobile boots. I can't find the Lysol. I mostly feel shame that I should sweep it all out, reorganize the stuff into my other junk room, and make it my new home.


same q

I do not have a closet under the stairs, but my grandparents do, and I do have some nostalgia associated with it. Many years ago it was filled with stuffed animals and my cousin and I used to hide in it for hours and make secret plans to deliberately annoy my grandparents. It was rumored that all the way at the back where the stairs met the floor was the entrance to a secret passage, but no matter how hard we dug through the stuffed animals we never found it.
Now I'm about three times the size of the closet, my cousin has lost track of the secret notebook we used to keep, and the closet is now full of things that aren't so comfortable to sit on (although I suspect now even those have been replaced by litter boxes). This is the inevitable fate of closets under stairs when there are no longer children to enjoy them. Perhaps someday my cousin and I will bring our own children back to that house and the closet will be revived.

What is your favorite room in your house and why?

That one hits hard.

I like my living room because it has my record player and good speakers and my TV and my guitars and some books and my reclining armchair and usually a dog or two. It could be improved with a bigger window that had a better view.

Same q.

Pretty sure we still have at least 3 of those little peeps. Never had the house. Don't recognise the lady with the white hair but the other 3 are definitely around somewhere.

The living room.

If you were recruited to help make a socially important film, would you say yes regardless of subject matter of the film?