We are currently house-hunting, and depending on how many bedrooms are in that little house, we wouldn’t say no to it. Though it honestly reminds me of one we looked at and didn’t bid on because its ceilings were so low my partner would’ve been banging his head on a load-bearing beam on a regular basis. Actually, it had issues not unlike the house in today’s cartoon, because at some point, a freeway was built next to it; I’m quite sure the house is from the ’20s or so, well before Interstate 5 was built.

This particular little house, though, was further out in the country when it was built than the one we looked at would have been, given the one we looked at was almost within walking distance of our state’s capitol complex. At any rate, the one in the cartoon was on a little hill, way out in the country. It would routinely look at the lights of the distant city and wish there were more houses around. And then, it got its wish, and things were all downhill from there—literally, as the hill seems to have been leveled at some point?

A lot of people talk about how the cartoon is about urban sprawl, and that’s, you know, fine, except I think the issue is that nothing built around it fits in with it. First, it is between two large and snobbish Victorian manors—and I mean, even there, you could practically reach out the window of one house and touch another. And then it’s between two tenements, then it’s among skyscrapers, and never in the entire course of the cartoon is it just with other houses like it, and that seems to me like a good place for a house like that. It’s shown as full of children at one point, and I can’t help wondering who those kids have to play with other than one another.

Honestly, it’s surprising that the little house isn’t torn down halfway through the short, if not sooner. Like, obviously, I’m acquainted with housing prices and land prices and so forth in my area, and sometimes, the land is more valuable without the house on it; I have friends who might well have been better off tearing down the house they bought and starting over. Late in the short, the house is completely surrounded by skyscrapers, and that just doesn’t happen. If you can hold onto the land, you fix up the house to be worth living in. If you can’t, you sell.

I mean, it’s a charming cartoon, and I’ve always loved it. It’s just my current situation that makes me think that I wouldn’t really want the house at any point in the cartoon, though it would be better than our apartment, if it’s at least three bedrooms and bath and a half. Obviously, I don’t want a house overshadowed by tenements or skyscrapers, but maybe something in a quiet street with a bunch of other houses of similar type in the area? Something within walking distance of literally anything, including other kids for mine to play with? I realize that’s not for everyone, but it’s the real issue to me with this cartoon.

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