Sticking To It

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Plastic balls in a box at the swap meet. 2009.

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Himself: Getting more and more difficult for all the folks who are getting laid off to go in to work. All of them want their extra pay at the end, but it is doom and gloom until then. G’s the only one to have any sick time remaining so will be using some in the next two weeks. Herself: Told Marta that G was being laid off. Said things would stay the same for the moment. Oh, it was hard to tell her, but she had to know. Swim and poetry today. No, I’m not touting any particular brand of wash product today, just using it as an example of my own obsessions. Long letter from Russ today. Oh joy. Reading: Dresden #6. Balance: Quiet moments reading. Got the old sewing machine up stairs….finally.

I spilled bright orange enchilada sauce down the front of my one, good, new white shirt. The spot remover didn’t get the stains out. Even the bleach pen didn’t take all the orange drip marks out. There they were mocking me with their color against the white. I gave up and dropped the shirt in the tub with a little water. Amazing….in the morning the orange was gone.

I’m obviously not a patient person with spots expecting instant gratification from my cleaning products. I’ve been spoiled.

When G was working for the towing Company, I tried everything to discover only this one product would get all the road dirt and truck grease out of his clothes. It didn’t matter how awful the job had been or how persistent the dirt was, this one gooey stick did the job. As far as I was concerned, this stuff was the be all and end all of life.

Who was I to think I could get a tow truck driver’s clothes clean. But I did.

He moved on to more decorous jobs but still the car guy. There was still grease to be had even in the rental car industry. That stick continued to do its job. But one day, I couldn’t find it at the grocery store. Nor was it at the other grocery store….or even a third store. I looked far and wide finally to find it tucked away at Tar-Jay.

Oh, I rejoiced. For tho G had become a clean and neat techie person with nary a drip down his front, my clothes began to resemble a war zone. In defense, I began wearing aprons in the kitchen, but that didn’t help when we were out in the big wide world where spots leaped to my front.

Then the stick vanished again. I tried other products while I kept looking for my spot stick. I tried one of every product. Sometimes it would take three or four applications of a goo, gel, or spray to move a grease stain around but not always out. Once or twice when I would wash a shirt, the stain was mine forever. I grew discouraged. There was no laughter in Mudville.

By chance yesterday, I found my stick in the cleaning products aisles of Von’s. The trumpets sounded. The chorus sang; the bells rang. I bought more than one. Sometimes it’s the little things that make a day, or week, or life.