This Lot is Not For Sale

There’s a gigantic empty, unkempt lot along Temple Drive, beside the, well, temple. We were driving too fast for me to snap a picture, but on the lot was a sign that declared: “THIS LOT IS NOT FOR SALE.” (I don’t know how this is different from not putting up a sign at all and leaving the public with no way to contact the owner of the lot .. Although there’s probably a whole reason to do with fake deeds -- Brooklyn Bridge and tralala. But I digress.)

That sign got me thinking. It’s empty and not looked-after, and it’s been not-looked-after for as long as I’ve known it. Twenty and almost-a-half years have come and gone, and no one’s made a move on that lot, not even the owners who so steadfastly refuse to sell it. Why?

The muni-muni home from White Plains to Xavierville came up with a theory, probably brought on by lack of sleep and inhaling the whole of EDSA earlier that morning.

Beside the lot is the Mormon temple, which I hear has a neat little underground tunnel connecting it to the residences across the street. If these Mormons are secretive enough to have a little tunnel to cross the street (or perhaps they sparkle melt in the sunlight?), what will stop them from making a whole little village that the tunnel just branches off to?

So the lot can’t be for sale, because if anyone buys it and starts building, they’ll end up the little town in a quiet village hiding underneath! With people milling about just below, eating and shopping and chilling! In mall-lets! Where Ponds and Avon can’t get a stall because nobody needs their whitening products anyway! And with X-Rays from the sky, they will look like little ants! Beside the real littler ants! Maybe there are massage tables under there. (Because, I mean, why not?)

Maybe the next time I see a This Lot is Not For Sale sign, I’ll get down from the car, stand by the sign, and stomp the morse code for “I know you’re down there!”

If they’re down there, they’ll know. They’ll know.