By James Klein

Grand Rapids, Michigan – Proud homeowner Mary Davidson used a tranquilizer dart to anesthetize her neighbor, Arnold O’Malley, before dragging him into her house. She shackled O’Malley to her newly installed island counter and held him captive until he praised the counter for being just the right size for her kitchen.

“But it wasn’t the right size!” O’Malley recalled, shuddering at the memory of Davidson’s poor design choices. “It was too large for the space, ruined the flow, and wrecked the feng shui!”

“She kept using the phrase ‘tidy and tasteful’ over and over, played through loudspeakers with lights shining in my eyes to break me psychologically,” O’Malley continued, his hands shaking. “I guess it worked, or else it was Stockholm Syndrome, because after a while, I kept saying it too, even though the island counter was positioned too far from the stove. The maggots she cooked to barely keep me alive could have been more easily served if the counter were closer to the pan of fly larvae.

“Then she directed my attention to her new appliances, and I realized she wasn’t going to let me go unless I celebrated every aspect of her grotesque redesign. I tried nodding, and making appreciative sounds, and looking impressed, but it wasn’t enough. She insisted I absolutely loooved it. The woman is a monster!”

O’Malley managed to escape when he joined forces with two other prisoners who’d been at Davidson’s house for several days – a friendly dad kidnapped from across the street, and a stranger who’d fallen into a camouflaged pit Davidson had dug in front of her house.

Though he is still recovering from the trauma of listening to every maddening detail of Davidson’s remodeling process, O’Malley agreed to let us use his real name. The two other captives asked to remain anonymous and are undergoing treatment for having to repeatedly pretend they liked Davidson’s frosted-glass cabinets.

The three prisoners were routinely dressed in sackcloth, and paraded around the kitchen, chained by their ankles, while they were pressured to adore Davidson’s choice of paint color. “It wasn’t salmon so much as what a salmon would throw-up,” said the dad from across the street. “It made my eyes burn having to look at it. Also, the bleach she kept spraying in my face, but at least the temporary blindness kept me from seeing the paint color.”

“She wouldn’t stop talking about her countertop!” exclaimed the pit-snared passerby, still shaken from the awkwardness of Davidson’s cloying need for approval. “We get it, you went with slab granite. It’s not exactly a bold choice, okay? You could have gone with quartz, or concrete, or some nice reclaimed wood, which would have been more eco-friendly, and better matched the distressed wainscoting.”

The abductees learned to humor Davidson by using just the right phrases to compliment the remodel. “She pulled one of my fingers out by the root because I called them cabinet ‘handles’ instead of ’pulls,’” recounted O’Malley. “She was closing the pliers around my thumb when I came up with the phrase ‘fun and functional’ to describe the travertine tile backsplash. It really seemed to pacify her. She released my thumb, and actually handed me a rag to wrap around my bloody finger stump. I’m not proud I said it, but you learn how to survive, even if you think the tile work is clumsy and garish.”

“Then there was the whole flooring issue,” lamented the dad from across the street. “She was pushing an icepick slowly into my eye socket, ordering me to commend her flooring choice. It was one of those synthetic materials, which is fine, you know, if it resembles wood or bamboo, but it was a kind of brushed-metal industrial gray, which can be attractive, but not when it’s paired with the country-barn aesthetic in the rest of the kitchen. I resisted as long as I could, but surrendered just before she severed my optic nerve, when I realized it wouldn’t have stopped me from seeing the flooring with my other eye.”

Neighbors say the situation escalated over several days as Davidson became increasingly desperate to lure people into her kitchen. “She tried to hold me hostage conversationally,” one shell-shocked resident remembered. “Even though I kept glancing at my watch and saying I had to leave, and that my spouse didn’t know where I was, and was probably looking for me. It had no effect. She kept me there for nearly three hours, showing me hundreds of ‘Before’ and ‘After’ photos while describing her difficulties with the contractors. The woman’s cruelty knows no bounds.”

A nearby homeowner remembered avoiding Davidson when they saw her on the street, and even being chased down the block one time, Davidson screaming, “Have you seen my kitchen remodel?” as the neighbor ran for their life.

“I guess that should have been a warning sign,” said the terrorized homeowner. “She eventually exchanged her rhetorical shackles for real ones.”

Davidson was found guilty on multiple counts, but the judge added “special circumstances” penalties to her sentence for the aesthetic violence she inflicted on her neighbors.

“No one should be forced to flatter another person’s renovations,” the judge concluded. “Especially when they’re gauche and prosaic.”