The Deed Is Done

 All three of my readers are saying, "For the love of fruit flies, Anne! Enough about buying land in the mountains! When are you going to start interviewing bored gods again and ranting about Republicans?"

Okay, okay, okay. I hear you. It's dull as dirt, reading about someone else's dreams coming true.

So today I'll just record the fact that the deed to 322 Mountain Road came in the mail. (The land is on Mountain Road, but I just made up the address. No house, no number. Sheesh! Go figure!)

Isn't it weird how these pieces of paper confer stuff to us? I have a title to my Subaru. A piece of paper that says I own the car. Gives the paper a lot of power, don't you think?

I don't have a deed to my house in Haterville, and I never will. It's mortgaged to the gills. Some bank has the paper for this house. I wonder where that paper is? In some file cabinet, I suppose. 

Sheafs of paper. Dang! Who thought this up? Shouldn't I just be able to go out there into the mountains and say, "THIS IS THE LAND OF MY PEOPLE, YOU JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE ME?"

My confidence in this pronouncement was so profound that I went the traditional route and sought out the proper papers.

I'm sure you've noticed this whole paper dodge. You go to the eye doctor, you get a little slip of paper with some weird markings on it, you take it to a store where they sell glasses, and by Gods, you can see again! How does this work?

And do you do any shopping at CVS? You go in for a pot of lip balm, give them some plastic card, and a strip of paper long enough to wrap up a mummy comes spitting out at you from the checkout. Why? Why do I need a piece of paper to get three bucks off the shampoo? Why don't you just price the shampoo three dollars less to begin with?

I guess I can blame my ancestors for this. They made their way up Town Creek until they didn't see any signs of life, then they started notching their initials or some kind of marking on the trees. Well, after all, trees are just raw, unprocessed paper. They raw-papered a complete landscape.

If you ask me, there's nowhere that this paper obsession seems more absurd than in paintings. Have you seen the ridiculous amounts some people are paying for paintings? Like, excuse me, it's a piece of paper with some color applied? You might look at it a few times, and then what? There it sits.

This is not really a sermon or a rant, it's just kind of me wondering how the whole paper thing got started. It's not what I would call a brilliant idea. You know what would work so much better? If you saw something you liked, and the person who had it just said, "Okay, here. You take it." And out of gratitude you might give that person something in exchange -- like a hearty handshake or a pizza or something.

So much better. But anyway, I got my papers. If my file cabinet catches fire, will I still own the land?