Dear HOA: Please Approve My Request to Build a Large Biblical, Air-conditioned Red Tent In My Backyard
Dear HOA: Please Approve My Request to Build a Large Biblical, Air-conditioned Red Tent In My Backyard
To the Neighborhood Architectural Control Board,
This is a follow-up letter to my very serious request to build a permanent Red Tent in my own backyard. I saw on the message board someone had called my proposal a “hideous period yurt”, and I took great offense. I also saw Dave down the street commented, “I can’t build my kid a treehouse in the front yard but she can build a menstruation hut!?!” Dave included expletives I won’t repeat. Dave got fourteen likes and one angry face.
For the record, the Red Tent I envision is tasteful, permanent and air-conditioned. Think of a mid-level Marriott room and you’ll get a good sense of my revised vision of this biblical structure.
You see, my need for a Red Tent is dire. In addition to working full time, we adult women are also being tasked with managing our family’s ever-fluctuating mental health. We are talking about feelings and devising activities and arranging playdates both in-person and virtual. We are making the kids and the dog exercise and also not making them “do too much”. We’re getting the library books, both written and on Kindle and borrowed and exchanged with friends because the value of the written word must be reinforced constantly and in every format imaginable. We are buying the food and cooking the food and cleaning up the food and we are IN A CONSTANT STATE OF WONDERING IF WE HAVE ENOUGH FOOD.
We are at all times trying desperately to keep our jobs and to distract our family members from the very real truth that nothing fun is coming in the foreseeable future.
Amidst of all this is the monthly love letter from our uteruses which turns a normal day into an I-hate-everything-and-everyone day. Imagine, ye men of the Architectural Control Board, that you have your normal existential dread (Why was I born to live a life where I brag about my lawn so much at parties?), coupled with your quarantine dread (Why does my spouse chew like that??), and add to all of that a turn-on-a-dime rage (WHERE ARE OUR WEAPONS? WHY DON’T WE HAVE ANY WEAPONS? OH, RIGHT, BECAUSE WE DON’T BELIEVE IN THEM. I HATE OUR VALUES!!!!!).
Do you think you could take even ten minutes of that without running screaming into the woods, “DEAR GOD LET ME BLEED IN PEACE!?!”
I understand there was some concern on the neighborhood facebook page about whether it would be an environmentally sound structure. I assure you every effort will be made to ensure it is completely soundproof, both from the outside and the inside. It must also be sealed very tight so that the air-conditioning (and later in this endless quarantine year, the heat) doesn’t leak out. As you know, a period can last anywhere from a couple days to sixteen weeks, so it’s important for the HVAC system to be efficient and robust.
I have met with contractors who are ready to build me my Red Tent, and I have alerted my neighbors, as is your requirement. They have asked that I do not give birth out there as many do in Red Tents (circa 5000 BCE). I have promised not to do this. However, if something like an Airbnb for Red Tents becomes a start-up, all bets are off as I may need some extra income. I can see my Red Tent being a destination birthing locale for weird religions (remember the sound-proofing?). For now, though, I just want to be alone with my rage once a month. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Sincerely Yours,
Jennie