Swapping house parts

There are some things you just take for granted. For instance, when I open our front door, I always assume that our steps will be there, as they have been for 167 years, granting passage in and out of the house to the street.

But one day I opened the door to check the temperature and noticed that our steps are starting to separate from the house. Oh, they're still there, but it can't be long before they decide to venture out on their own. "Enough's enough!" I imagine them saying. "These people can jolly well use a ladder, or jump, or never come out of the house at all for all we care. We're tired of being attached to one place for all this time!" And slowly, our steps will make their way to independence.

Where will they go? I wonder. One day, maybe somewhere in New York, someone will open their window and discover that they can now descend directly from the window to the sidewalk, via our steps. And once the other parts of our house see that the steps have struck out on their own, what will be next to separate itself? The back porch? the roof? Soon our house will come apart like a child's play kit house, and houses all over the neighborhood will be swapping parts. We might end up with little gable windows. Another house might gain a white picket fence or decorative Victorian touches. The large, modern homes might suddenly find their spacious deck gone, replaced by a modest, painted wooden porch. Cute little cottages will be overwhelmed with large bay windows.

It's a good thing we live in the middle of a row of houses. If our house were freestanding, there's no telling what the house itself might decide to do.