I don’t know much about Manville, but I know this.  While there are opportunities for personal hygiene in Manville, they aren’t used frequently.  The light from the exposed bulb above the sink -- it’s not flattering and will most certainly not make you look any younger.  That rag hanging on a nail above the sink -- it’s for wiping.  (Hands, the sink, the machinery . . . I’m not sure.  But I’m pretty certain that no matter what it has wiped, it hasn’t been laundered recently.)  

If you’re a man, you can find lots to do in Manville.

This is the Mayor of Manville making bullets.  Technically, it’s called reloading, but in Chicktown, we call it making bullets.  Those of us who live in Chicktown don’t understand why the residents of Manville need bullets, but that’s another story.  By the way, notice how unflattering the light in Manville is on the Mayor’s face?

Very few women visit Manville, for obvious reasons.  The ones who do usually carry guns or have really big vehicles and mostly adorn catalogs and calendars.

As you might guess, Mr. Mom spends a lot of time in Manville.  Before he and I moved to Mayberry, we were both unhappy with an extremely frustrating domestic arrangement.  Basically, there was no Manville in our old house.  I had promised Mr. Mom a room, but I reneged.  I’m not usually a welsher, but the only room I had to give was a living area.  He said he wanted to play pool in that room, but I knew better.  I knew that living area -- right off my kitchen and dining room -- would become Manville, and I simply couldn’t have that.  Manville is only one reason why Mr. Mom and I like Mayberry so much.

By the way, here’s a little corner of Chicktown.

I bought this chair at an antique store in Tulsa a few months ago.  As occasional chairs go, it’s pretty nice.  (By the way, there are no occasional chairs in Manville.)  But then I saw a picture in Metropolitan Home of a similar chair with a sheepskin on it, and the chair in the photo just looked so much better than mine.  So I ran right out and bought one and carefully arranged it in my chair, and now I feel so much better.

The Mayor of Manville does not read Metropolitan Home.  And he would never buy a sheepskin, although he might have one if he actually killed the lamb and skinned it.  But he wouldn’t carefully arrange it in a chair.  He might make something useful out of it, like this arrow-holder quiver made out of a rabbit. 

Or is it a fox?  I’m not sure.  I get my dead wildlife mixed up.

Despite the sheepskin chairs and lavender walls and scented candles and fragile Noritake china and useless ceramic foo dogs in Chicktown, the Mayor of Manville behaves himself there . . . for which the Magpie adores him.

And one more thing.

See that contraption behind the Mayor of Manville?  It’s called a boiler, but I didn’t know that until the Mayor told me.  He also told me it heats water with natural gas and then circulates the hot water through our radiators, which keep our home warm.  If something goes wrong with the boiler,  the Mayor knows how to fix it.

And that, residents of Chicktown, is extremely sexy, even if Manville is a total turn-off.