I’ve been thinking about selling my condo and buying a house, but I have so much to do before it’s ready for the market.  I have to paint the entire place.  Update the appliances.  Set a trap for the wild armadillo.

I recently learned about “house staging,” which seemed like a really great idea.  House staging is where you pay someone to fill your place full of furniture so that it looks “homey” and more appealing to a prospective buyer.  I have heard, of course, about eccentric people who keep large collections of random furniture for use at some point in the future, but I never thought of them as home stagers. I always thought of them as “other people’s grandmothers.”

I like the concept of home staging.  A buyer walks into your place, newly filled full of plants, paintings, and expensive accoutrements, and says “This could be my home.  I could live here.” And then all the stuff goes away and the buyer finishes the paperwork and walks back into the place, looks at all the empty rooms, and exclaims “I’ve been had!  I need to go hire a home stager and sell this dump.” Given the frequency of this cycle, I’d guess that home stagers have even more job security than morticians.

I think the concept of staging could be carried into other aspects of life.  I like the idea of walking into my company’s holiday party and introducing my date as “Vesper Lynde, treasury agent.” I could have fake stuff into my cube, such as a fountain or a vibrating massage chair.  I could lease a BMW to drive around in, or perhaps a jet pack.

If there’s a danger of staging, it’s that you eventually want it all to become reality.  I’ve been accused of spending too much of the day in a dreamworld, but at least I know enough to eventually stick my head back under the ozone layer.  I see people walk around with clothes and cars they can’t afford, and those are people who take staging too far. They decide they don’t just want to stage it; they want to live in it permanently.  You want to keep your kids away from these sort of individuals--although I don’t mind if they come see my condo when I have an open house.  I think they’ll like all the vases filled with flowers.