Shearer, 527 words

Have you noticed that a phenomenon of people wanting to move seems to exist now in the United States?

Every time I go through our suburban neighborhood, a different house is for sale. I am beginning to think that some people evidently believe they need a new residence about as often as they need a new pair of sneakers.

Sometimes people move because they have found jobs in other towns. But in many cases, people are moving just a mile or two away because they are looking at upgrading or--on rare occasions in this era of economic boom times--downgrading their living situations.

Back in the good old days, people would buy a bigger house only when they reached age 40 and the husband was promoted to vice president. They would then live there until the day they died or were taken to a nursing home by their children.

Nowadays, the children burying their parents or placing them in a nursing home might decide on impulse that they need a bigger house simply for the three or four pieces of heirloom furniture they just acquired or inherited.

People must just sit around talking about moving and then do it, as if they are deciding whether to have eggs for breakfast.

The husband might come home from work one day and the wife will say, "Honey, I love how the owners of that ranch house for sale on Smith Drive have painted their shudders green. We have to have that house."

So they will paint their own shudders blue to be able to sell their house and buy the one with green shudders.

I am amazed at how some people will spend so much time and money getting their house looking pretty to sell, when they usually ignored it while living in it. People will often head off to the local garden center to buy several dozen blooming plants and flowers not for their own enjoyment, but for that of potential buyers.

I have about decided that the only time many people under 50 do any work to make their house look good is the first three months and the last three months they are living in it.

And moving is another crazy matter. I do not follow the stock market as closely as I should, but I have realized that I need to look at buying stocks in moving companies. They have to be doing well.

Unfortunately, most of the people I know move themselves--and they often ask me to help them. This is due in part to my stocky frame and the small pickup truck I own.

Being one who believes in aiding his fellow man in need, I usually try to help. But I still show some self-centeredness by wondering why these people are buying a house for more than $200,000 and then trying to save only a couple hundred dollars by not hiring professional movers.

In case you have not figured it out, moving is a sore subject with me--it gives me a sore back.

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