The Case of the Missing Buttons

About a month and a half ago, I was helping Hubby pack for a trip to a warmer weathered clime and as we took out the appropriate clothing, we inadvertently began cleaning his side of the bedroom closet.

I would have to say that I can't remember the last time his side of the closet was cleaned, or my side for that matter, because if I'm the Princess of Procrastination and the Queen of Clutter then he's the King of Kan't Throw Anything Away Because His Highness Might Need it His Next Reign. We are a pair.

But as there is so much stuff in the closet, we barely made a dent in the mess as it was as we went along, tossing through the clothes, separating the short sleeved from the long and summer from winter.

In our excitement, and going off on a tangent, Hubby began looking at his sport coats as well, trying them on and asking my opinion on their conditions. One sport coat in particular was a tan corduroy coat that he's had for several years and also one of his most favorite, but, being a bit worse for wear, he was finally convinced that it had seen better days and that it was time for it to go into the rag bag along with several other items.

He handed things to me - old shoes, a stained shirt, broken shoelaces - and I plunked them into the trash with determined finality. (I had impressed myself for my strength of will.) Distracted, I wasn't paying much attention to what he was doing, just took things as he handed them to me for disposal. I seem to remember he also offered me a handful of leather buttons.

"What are these for?" I asked, puzzled.

"I was thinking that we could save these," he said, "as they might come in handy later."

Disgusted, I replied, "Oh, what do I need a bunch of buttons for? I have loads of buttons downstairs and I've never used one of them!"

That said, the buttons went into the trash. I gathered up the discarded items and took them downstairs to add to the garbage.

When he had returned from his trip, Hubby was grumbling at me because he had set aside a couple of coats from his closet for dry cleaning and I hadn't found the time to take them to the cleaners while he was away. That week I got them dropped off and had him pick them up on his way back from work on Friday night.

The following Monday, he had been running late in the morning and so I had left before he did to take the kiddies to school. When he came home that evening, I noticed that he had on one of the sport coats I had had dry cleaned.

"Wow, that coat looks pretty good," I commented.

"Yeah, it does," he said, "but do you notice anything unusual about it?"

"No," I replied, checking from top to bottom, "I think it looks nice." And it did look good, and here we were going to throw it away. It's amazing what a little soap and water can do.

"I had to run out for a meeting today but had forgot my coat," he said. "Being cold, I tried to button my jacket but couldn't because there were no buttons on it."

"What?" I exclaimed, and, sure enough, there was not one button on the front of the sport coat, and not even one on the sleeves.

"I had to go to the meeting like this, but I made do," he said. "I don't think anyone noticed."

My mind reeled. I couldn't fathom where the buttons had gone.

"What kind of maniacal dry cleaner would remove all the buttons from a coat and not put them back on!"

I continued my rant and rave, but that wasn't all I did. I retrieved the phone book, looked up the cleaner's number and gave them a call. A distracted sounding young man answered.

"Speedy Cleaners, Chet speaking, can you hold for a moment?"

"No!" I snapped. "I will not hold. Now listen here," I fumed, "I brought in my husband's coat for cleaning and now all the buttons are missing. What kind of a cleaners are you taking all the buttons off a coat?!"

"Uh..." There was a long pause.

"Well? What are you going to do about it?" I was really steamed and could feel my red hair glowing redder.

"Um, bring in the coat, ma'am, and some buttons and we'll sew them on for free."

"Buttons!" I really couldn't believe the audacity of this guy. "The coat had buttons and you were the ones who took them off. I'm not going to buy anything!"

"Uh..." Chet was at a loss for words. He didn't know what to say except for, "Just bring in the coat, ma'am, and we'll try to take care of it for you."

I snapped out a hostile, "Thanks," and ended the call. Who could believe those people?

"You need to take the coat in," I informed Hubby. "If you go right now you can drop the coat off before they close."

Now my Hubby was repeating what poor Chet had been, "Uh...Um..."

"Well, what's the matter?" I said. "Get going!"

"I'm too embarrassed," he said. "Why don't you take the coat?"

At this point, I too began to feel embarrassed as I hadn't been very nice on the phone.

"Oh, alright," I relented, "I'll take it tomorrow."

Well "tomorrow" came and went and the next business day and the next one. All that time, I couldn't forget about the coat and tried to piece together what could have happened. As I examined the coat more closely I noted that all of the button threads had been cut. And then the horrible truth came crashing down as I remembered back to the closet cleaning day and Hubby offering me a handful of leather buttons which had ended up being tossed into the trash.

To this day I still haven't gone back to Speedy Cleaners, and, though I have tried in vain, I still have not been able to find any look alike leather buttons at the store. Hubby still has the sport coat, too. Though no longer useful, the favorite is hanging there in the time capsule of a closet that will doubtfully get cleaned again for fear of what could happen...

Merry-Merry, Quite Contrary, Where Have You Been?

Gosh, is it spring yet!?! It doesn't exactly feel like it around here. (I think I'm obsessing on this topic - Spring.) It's been colder than average during the months of April and May. One good thing, it has stopped snowing. Everything's green out there. I still haven't planted any annuals, but have been working on the flower beds. Have even been doing some painting.

I guess I've been preoccupied with the house as it's on the market right now, and thing's aren't going so well in that department. Could be crazy that we decided to try and sell, with all the real estate problems happening across the country, but we are. And it's not that we don't "love" our house, it's just that we're finally ready for a change. I've been ready for a change for the past five years or so. (That's code for I'm sick and tired of trying to clean and maintain this rat trap.) If you detect a sneer in my writing, you guessed right. I've been so busy "doing" that I haven't had time for much else, including blogging.

I was thinking about my blog yesterday, saying, "Man, I really have to get back on top of it. Write some quirky, funny posts." The truth is that I haven't been feeling very quirky or funny lately. I blame my house for my lack of animo.

We put it on the market in March, and I've been cleaning, decluttering and painting ever since. Like, I wonder, does it ever end? Seems like the more I clean, declutter and paint that the worse it gets. How much junk and disorder can one family have? (That's a cry for help disguised as a question.) And we haven't even touched the garage. We've replaced two windows, too. And have been hacking, chopping and weeding in the yard. Thrown away loads... Given away tons... And it never ends!

Over the past two months, we've had two official showings. Just two! What's up with that? I ask. The Realtors are convinced that our price is too high. Perhaps it is, I'm not sure. One thing for sure is that all the fliers in the box out front have been flying away (pun intended). That must count for something. Last Sunday we had an open house, so the week prior was the week from hell. We worked our butts off. I can say that I worked double time, as I'm here at home all day and would fill my day with a mental check list and then work on gettin' er done. Consequently, every night I was passing out on the sofa between eight and nine from exhaustion. Last weekend was no different, I was truly drained.

When Sunday came, we were ready though. Of course, there were last minute things, like all my painting tools and drop cloths getting shoved in the dishwasher. That was a classic move if I do say. The thought of someone checking out the dishwasher and the look on their face when they did so had us in stitches. "What kind of people are they, washing tools?" Oh well, let them look. Much to our chagrin only three families came through during the open house, with the second family being the Previous Homeowners.

For whatever unknown, sick-twisted (perhaps pre-planned, perhaps not) reason they decided to take a tour down memory lane of their old home. Basically it sounds like they monopolized the time of my realtor, leading the realtor to miss conversing with the potential "real" buyer who slipped in and out as this transpired, as they shared all their happy-happy joy-joy stories of the happy-happy joy-joy days when they lived in their happy-happy joy-joy home. But the creme de la creme of their rapturous reunion was when they spied the old painting in the basement.

Let me give you some back story. When we bought the house The Painting was hanging on a wall in the basement. It is a simple painting, a borderline primitive/realistic (albeit two-dimensional) still life. It has its grace, though, and being a former fine artist I liked it from the first. Anyway, it's been hanging on the same nail on the same wall in the basement for the past twelve years. The important part of this equation is that because The Painting was left in the house and because twelve years have elapsed, The Painting now belongs to me. (Possession, my dears, is nine-tenths of the law, as my Dear Old Dad always used to tell me.)

Well, to make this long story longer, PHO comes upstairs, painting in hand, surprising the realtor, to exclaim, "I finally found the long-lost painting that my dear dead relative painted for me years and years ago that I thought I had lost during the move!" What's my realtor to do? I bet they felt between a rock and a hard place to say the least. PHO plunks the painting down on the counter and leaves a note, explaining all this and requesting to have The Painting back again.

WHAT?!? When I heard this from the realtor at the end of the open house - It got my dander up to no end. Who does this person think they are coming into my home and touching my things like that? There's so many holes in this whole thing. Number one, if the painting was so precious WHY WOULD YOU FORGET IT IN THE FIRST PLACE? Number two, If you noticed that the painting was missing WHY WOULDN'T YOU RETURN TO YOUR PREVIOUS HOME, KNOCK ON THE DOOR AND ASK FOR IT BACK RIGHT AWAY? Jeez, I'm not a complete hard ass. If PHO were to have contacted me within a couple of days or the first week, heck even the first month, after moving I would have gladly given them the painting, but TWELVE YEARS LATER! Give me a break! The Painting was obviously not so precious to them after all now was it. (I think I'm foaming at the mouth after this rant, better end it.)

Needless to say, the open house was a complete flop. All that hard work for nothing - We were expecting more people and a potential offer. We were hopeful. With hopes dashed (nearly to pieces) we're wondering what's the next move... We haven't decided yet, but I assume we will keep on and drop our price and see what comes next.

So, that's where Merry's been for the past two months, contrarily lost in the house from hades, contrarily plugging along, contrarily getting things done, and just as contrarily contrary as usual. Whew!

Cabin Fever

Once again we were hit by a storm. Saturday night a "clipper system" rolled into the Great Lakes, dumping several inches of snow. That wasn't the bad part. The system was followed by an Arctic cold front, which dropped the temperatures down into the single digits, and accompanied by 20 to 30 mph winds, which dropped the wind chills into the below zeros.

We had gone to our friends' house for dinner on Saturday night and the drive back to our home was nothing less than treacherous. The roads were slick with ice. Visibility was difficult in the white-out conditions. The traffic crawled along and there had been numerous slide-offs. Just beyond our exit on the highway was a multi-car accident, so, thankfully for us, we didn't have to negotiate around the pile-up through that dangerous spot. We made it safely.

Sunday morning, what ho? Snowed in again. Hundreds of churches had canceled Sunday service. Authorities recommended avoiding driving unless absolutely necessary. It kept snowing and the winds howled, rattling the windows and doors. Even though I turned up the thermostat, the house felt like a walk-in refrigerator. The kids were complaining for the cold and the dog refused to go outside. On the news was reported a 30 car crash on one of the major highways. No one had to tell me to stay home.

I have to admit that, even for a die-hard Michigander like myself, I am getting restless. There's lots of things one can do to stay busy - watch a movie, play games, work on a project, etc. Those are all grand suggestions on how to be entertained and pass the time, but what did I opt to do? I cleaned house.

As you may or may not know, I happen to be the Queen of Domestic Dilemmas and the Princess of Procrastination, so when I opt to "clean" anything you could pretty much chalk it up to the end of the world or an invasion of aliens (you pick). That's how cooped up I felt on Sunday. None of the traditional pasttimes appealed to me. Because of this, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that I am suffering from a mild case of Cabin Fever.

I decided the best way to combat my symptoms was to retreat to a part of the house which is particularly neglected - the second floor. There I dueled with dust bunnies, tackled the trash, and swabbed the decks. I conquered the clothes piles, tussled with toys, and battled the books. A few hours of my time later and things were shaping up nicely.

Next I went into the basement, empty baskets in hand. I had to finish some laundry and also thought I'd see what else I could accomplish. Of course, there were clothes in the drier waiting to be folded and stacks of clean clothes on top of the machine. I took care of both and started a load to wash. As I stood there, revved with adreniline, rocking on my heels, I spied it... Mount Ironing.

Now, I usually have good intentions, telling myself, "I'll do 15 minutes of ironing a day and will have it done in no time." Since I am a resident of the Land of Procrastination and Denial, what I really do upon seeing the pile is cringe, avert my eyes, and walk past as fast as I can. The truth is that I never make time to iron because I HATE IRONING! But yesterday, what did I do? I forced myself to start digging through the clean clothes until I uncovered the ironing board and plugged in the iron. The embarassing part of all of this was that I was finding summer clothes in the ironing pile and clothes that my children have actually grown out of!

Some people would have hated their flaws more and spiraled into deeper self-loathing, "I'm such a loser because I haven't ironed since last year!" but not me. I forgave myself for my flaws and faced them, "Who cares?" I said, and put in an hour's worth of ironing. I have to say I made quite a bit of progress. Don't worry, I didn't try to tackle Mount Ironing in one day. I worked for a while and then called it good. Outside the wind was howling still and the world was a blustery one as seen from my window. The kids were excited about the possiblity of NO SKOOL the next day. We had dinner and then watched two of my kids' favorite Sunday shows - America's Funniest Home Videos and Extreme Home Makeover - and then it was time for bed. I felt better for having accomplished some things that day, but inside I was secretly dreading the possibility of being imprisoned by the weather for a second day in a row... Chalk it up to Cabin Fever!