Lucy was a 12 year old techie nerd who was about as
domestic as her goldfish Byron that just died two weeks ago. Her second love was repairing things. She could repair almost anything with glue
and duct tape at least that was the running joke with family members and close
friends. Seriously though her favorite
past time when she wasn’t
in front of smart device was helping Daddy Sam (her paternal grandfather) in
his mechanic shop – which was the garage
to the family home where she and her brother, Roman lived.
Roman on the other hand loved the outdoors no matter the
weather, especially the rainy season.
During the spring he loved the way the earth felt under his bare feet
and hands. More than anything he loved
to eat, not greasy hamburgers, French fries, hot chips and Pepsi like most
adolescents. He loved vegetables of all
kinds, except okra, it was too slimy for him.
His love for food increased his desire to learn how to prepare his
favorite dishes like Daddy Sam’s
BBQ ribs, chicken and potato salad.
Gram as they affectionately called Rosalie, Daddy Sam’s wife of over 45 years, was
the best cook in the neighborhood and though they lived in the city, she
created a garden in the backyard and planted herbs in the huge bay window of
her kitchen. She insisted that Lucy and
Roman learn to garden but Lucy just about ruined her snap peas and greens one
year so she evicted her, wouldn’t
even let her near the garden unless someone with a “green thumb” accompanied her.
She always had a suspicion Lucy sabotaged her peas and greens on purpose
because she hated dirt but didn’t
mind getting car grease under her fingernails.
Go figure. Gram believed Lucy
didn’t like being
in the garden because she was afraid she would get a tan. But chile, Lucy was navy blue, she wasn’t gonna get any darker, poor thing,
she couldn’t help it,
but Gram loved her some Lucy. Roman on
the other hand took to gardening almost as if he had been doing so all his
life. The combination of fresh food from
Gram’s garden, his
love for it and interest in cooking were a perfect match.
A couple of years ago Gram taught them how to fold and
put their clothes away. They both did
well, but Lucy could care less about domestic chores, she was always in a hurry
to run off and fix something or “get
on the line” as Gram called
it. Now at the age of 12 and 13, Gram
felt they were both old enough to begin doing their own laundry. She instructed them on the art of sorting
whites and colored clothes, heavy duty items, delicates, etc. She reminded them both to empty their pockets
and turn them inside out to ensure they didn’t
leave candy, napkins or other items that could damage the dryer or clothing and
to avoid the accumulation of lint which she hated. Gram also instructed them on the importance
of NOT washing towels with items like sweaters or linen to avoid lint from
forming on the laundered items and to clean the lint screen after each wash to
ensure the dryer operated correctly.
Lucy now realized part of her hatred of lint (in her pockets) was
genetic or at least subliminally influenced by Gram hatred of lint too.
One Saturday while doing the laundry, Lucy wasn’t paying attention and she
washed Roman’s favorite
hoodie with a load of towels. After
drying the items, she realized her mistake after discovering that the towels
had lint bunnies all over them and Roman’s
sweatshirt was no longer smooth and fluffy, it now looked like it had acne all
over it. How she missed that black
hoodie amongst all those towels she had no idea, but it didn’t change the fact that she
had. She knew he was gonna be ticked off
when he saw it so she tried desperately to mitigate the damage by using a lint
roller and was able to lift about 45% of the lint from the hoodie but it was
still noticeable. She ran to the garage
and got her trusted duct tape hoping it would do the trick of removing the rest
of the lint but it didn’t. She decided to hide the hoodie hoping he
would soon forget about it, besides, he was always losing something, maybe he
would assume he left it at school and surprisingly it worked.
The following weekend Gram asked Lucy to wash the
bathroom towels. Even though they didn’t live in a hotel, Gram only
purchased white towels which she washed daily.
In a hurry, Lucy grabbed the basket of towels, put them in the wash,
added the detergent, Clorox, fabric softener and set the washer for “whites”. An hour later Gram asked Lucy to remove Daddy
Sam’s dress socks
from the dryer, place the wet towels in the dryer and set it for 60 minutes on
the heavy cycle. Not paying attention
(as usual) Lucy placed the towels in the dryer but completely forgot to remove
the black dress socks. A couple of hours
later, Gram asked Lucy about the socks but she said she never saw them. Perplexed, Gram went to the laundry room and
discovered that Daddy Sam's black dress socks were now polka dots, fully
covered with lint bunnies from top to bottom.
When Gram called for Lucy to meet her in the laundry room she could tell
by the sound in her voice that she was in for a tongue lashing.
Gram said: “Lucy,
I'm confused; I washed Daddy Sam's black pimp socks but you're right, I don't
see them." Relieved, Lucy replied “Yes ma’am, Gram, I told you they weren’t in there.” Gram
replied: “What I did
find was these black polka dolt socks”. At that point Lucy remembered that she had
not looked as Gram instructed, at least not closely. Realizing her mistake, she opted for silence
as she stared wide eyed at the floor, as guilt and embarrassment oozed from her
pores. “Any
idea how these socks were transformed from black to polka dot?" Lucy continued to stare out the floor. Gram spoke again: "Lucy not wanting to
perform a task doesn't give us permission to half do it. I need you to figure out how are you going to
get this lint off Daddy Sam’s
socks in time for church tomorrow?” Lucy perked up and said: “I
have the perfect idea”. At that she ran to the garage, retrieved her
Zebra print duct tape, returned to the laundry room and told Gram she could
almost guarantee she could remove the lint in plenty of time for church. Gram chuckled and said: “Do
you mean the way you removed the lint from Roman’s
hoodie?” Lucy looked at Gram like a dear in
headlights.
Lucy spent the next 60 minutes trying desperately to
remove the lint only to become frustrated until she came up with the idea to
put the socks on to offer more stability as she continued the painstaking
process of removing the lint, similar to waxing one’s legs like she saw on You
Tube. The idea probably would have
worked except Daddy Sam’s
“pimp” socks were super thin. She executed her method and ruined four pairs
of socks by ripping holes in them with the dense duct tape. Frustrated she sat on her bedroom floor and
became more and more irritated as she thought about the amount of time she had
wasted on something as stupid as lint.
What was the point? She imagined
that someone somewhere was making a killing on selling anti-lint products on
this stupid stuff. She concluded that
lint serves no purpose other than to irritate people and ruin their lives. And how did Gram know she tried to use duct
tape to remove the lint from Roman’s
hoodie? She wasn’t even home that day. “I
swear sometimes I think that woman has eyes in the back of her head or cameras
throughout the house that we don’t
know about” Lucy thought to
herself. She took a few deep breaths and
decided she would not cry over something so stupid, but she felt helpless. How did she end up in this position in the
first place? Twice, well actually four
times as she recalled: she left Kleenex in her black Dockers resulting in lint
in both pockets and another time she washed her favorite red sweater with something
that created lint all over it and on top of that the sweater shrank. She decided from that point on to be an enemy
of lint. The best way to combat an enemy
is to learn about them/it and that’s
what she did.
Listen, things are not always as they appear. This is the makings of a great blog but you
will never hear the end of it if you don’t
read part 2 back. I can promise you
this, it will be worth your time and it will not end the way you
anticipated. I’m out of time.
Because of his un-derserving Favor
Tania Not Tanya
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