THIS place

When we moved 500 miles north this January, we packed all of our earthly belongings onto two 18 foot moving trucks, then unpacked them in our new, bizarre house in our new, bizarre town.

During a move like this, it is typical for people to toss all kinds of useful stuff. I had a large box in our front room for a month, and I added things to it daily; things I hadn't used in a while or didn't expect to ever really need. The wine and cheese picnic basket, maternity clothes, baby clothes, fifteen extra bed pillows.. Then there were things that I simply didn't want to decide on, clean, pack or otherwise handle. These things live as the careless disposals in my memory. My huge, blank canvas, my ice cream maker, my garment rack, a gigantic planter; things that I am positive that I would use if I had them right now.

Despite my attempts to be methodical about assessing our belongings, I became careless.

After settling in to our new home in Illinois, I returned focus to my craft instead of the arrangement of our belongings. With my fabric cataloged in the largish closet and iron plugged in, I began to think about what project I was going to begin. That's when I remembered that my machine had broken back in Knoxville, just before our move. I had intended to take it to a local store in K town that I had experience with, and I had even put it in the back of my truck and drove it around for a couple of weeks before the move. It never made it to the fix it place, instead it made it from the back of my truck straight into the back of the moving truck, without having been fixed.

I HAD attempted to fix the machine myself. I took the top off, one of the inner plates, and could see that one of the gears looked suspiciously asymmetrical. That's as far as I got, and I didn't even put the thing back together again. I put all the plates and bolts and screws into a zip lock bag, then duct taped it to the base of the machine. I put the machine into a plastic pepsi crate, and put it into the truck.

Since I do have a couple back up machines, I located the better one and proceeded to get my sew on. I put the busted machine in my car, and somewhere between a month and six weeks later, I took the thing to the sew n vac place in Champaign.

I had seen the place in my exploration of the town and made a mental note of it's location. I recalled there being something "strange" about the place, but I had forgotten what till the day I took the machine in.

While I appreciate salvaging anything that can be, I had never associated the action with that of the lord Jesus Christ. My attitude was "I might as well at least try and repair this thing; what is the worst that could happen? It would wind up in the shit heap anyway. Maybe I'll learn something about these things in the process."

Comparing a man's salvation to that of a vacuum cleaner is hard for me to comprehend. The analogy gets confusing; if Jesus is to mankind as what this guy is to vacuum cleaners and sewing machines, then I have a few questions. First of all, does God direct you in your work on vacuum and sewing machines? Are you a martyr, or do you symbolize a sacrifice to small machines on God's behalf?

Jesus:Mankind

This guy:Vacuum and sewing machines

I decided against asking the man these questions, instead I explained the problem with my machine, and he fiddled around with the baggie of parts.

"Seems like the casing is missing. Do you have any more parts?" He asked.

I blanked, and looked in my pockets and purse for no reason. I went out and looked in the trunk of my car, knowing it wasn't there. If the part wasn't in the baggie, there was no telling where it was. I went back in and explained that we had moved, and that the part was likely in my sewing room. He said that I could leave the machine there and bring the part by when I found it.

In the back of mind I knew there was no way I would ever find that part, but I destroyed my craft room anyway. Every box emptied, every corner swept, every cabinet searched. No part.

When I finally gave up looking, I decided I would take my better back up machine in and get him to spruce it up a little. The tension plates were never very sensitive; it is a Kenmore domestic machine from the early 1990s which has been used and abused, so it could use a thorough once over.

After calling the proprietor of the shop and letting him know the piece was gone with the wind, I drove the other machine there to swap out.

The proprietor's son works in the shop along side him and there's clearly a dominant/submissive type relationship between the two.

When I dropped my Singer off, a man was there purchasing three bags of vacuum cleaner bags and a bottle of cleaning solution. When he was checking out, the son, in an attempt at being James Bond radical, said "That's $14.95, those two are $15.40 each, and the solution is $12.65, so that would be.. ummm let's see, $58.40 plus tax, and for that I'll have to..."
Interrupting, his father said in a low voice "Sixty two oh five. With tax", as he slowly turned his head and torso away from helping me to meet the pleading gaze of his son.

The expression on his face when he turned back to me was one of bitter disgust accented by embarrassment.. He was shaking his head very subtly. Bearing a striking resemblance to Lyndon B Johnson, but less healthy, this man didn't possess a certain je ne sais quoi .

These situations used to embarrass me, but for some reason, now-a-days it is just amusing.

Junior had the same demeanor and style as Napoleon Dynamite's brother.

Last time I had the Kenmore machine serviced was over 10 years ago in Boone, NC where I went to college. I recall the shop in Boone charging me $80 for a routine tune up and cleaning, and they removed all my super cool stickers. After a decade the machine accumulated lots of new stickers, one of them being a radical "What Would Wesley Do" sticker designed by my friend, Brad Pope. It is an image of Wesley Willis with "What Would Wesley Do" superimposed across it. I couldn't help but wonder if he considered that sticker; it is ripped and half worn off, but I think the message is clear.

Three weeks after getting the message that the machine was repaired, I went to Champaign to pick it up. The proprietor made a point of bringing up the record of the transaction while both of my children climbed and stood on the same stool. I paraphrased the situation and the transfer of machines, and told him that I already had a check in the amount he quoted on the message. He continued reading from the computer and when he got to the note he had left himself about the message left, he recited it, then turned and looked at me, repeating, "Yes. That message was left September 18th. A full 23 days ago"

I apologized and tried to explain that weekends are better for me to go places without my kids, and that since his store isn't open weekends I had put it off over and over.

He took the check and looked at it at an extreme angle accessing just the right spot on his spectacles. Setting the check back on the counter, the man turned and shuffled into a back room returning with my machine, stickers intact. As intact as they were when I brought the thing in, at least.

The volume of my children was increasing, and with the combination of that and the man's attitude I was starting to loose it.

Sliding the check towards him, I grabbed the machine, and wrangled my kids to the door. He asked if I could manage, and I said that I could.

Settled back in the car, the kids and I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street.

"That is a really weird store Mom." Fox declared.

"Why do you say so?" I asked

"That grumpy man has a bunch of signs and crazy stuff hung up everywhere and the store looks like it should be shut down"

I agreed with him and we giggled about that guy and his son.

I guess spreading the good word with a "repair shop" metaphor is as good as any evangelical approach.

6/1/2008 Liquor-cycle

A few weeks ago Lee asked me to take him down the road to pick up a rug he saw on the side of the street. Being an active scavenger, I had already seen the rug in which he spoke days before. Two thunderstorms before. He acted like there was a big rush on going and getting the thing so I buckled Fox in, then jumped in the car, making myself 100% available and determined.
We drove at breakneck speeds to the curb where the rug was discarded and Lee gave me explicit directions about positioning my car for an optimal getaway. We both jumped out of the car; I opened the back of the truck and he hoisted the rug onto the bed. As we closed the hatch and jumped back into the cab another car pulled up. It seemed as if they lived in the house and were trying to pull into the driveway that we were blocking with our creative parking. After our doors were secured I gassed the engine, spinning gravel across the yard and accelerating towards our street.
Lee was invigorated.
"Did yew see that guy comin in-a-tryin te get ire rug?!"
Unwilling to share my downer perspective I said "Yeah! We DOGGED that jerk!"
We continued down the street with the rug in stow when Lee remarked
"Ats a nice rug. Uh hunderd dollar rug. It smells a little like cat urine, but I know a way tuh get rid uv it. What cha do iz take bakin soda an crushed up cloves an sprinkle em all over the thing with uh little alcohol; leave it for half hour, then clean it with detergent."
At this point I had already lowered all windows in the truck due to the oppressive smell. Willing to believe Lee's folk remedy I concentrated on getting home asap.
When we got back to Lee's house we pulled the rug out onto the dirt driveway and he proceeded to gather the elements needed to de-funkify the rug.
Approaching the rug with scientific rigor, he nodded in my direction while extending a five dollar bill.
"Thanks for goin on a run, girl. I'm gonna clean this thing up".
The rest of Lee's afternoon was spent multi-processing the rug with every chemical in his cupboard.
I decided to go to the grocery store and when I got back into the car it still smelled of cat urine.
This weekend my sister in law came into town to spend some time with us and the boy. She took Fox to the park while Jason and I cleared brush and overgrowth from our extra lots.
Lee appeared and asked about what we were doing and where was my truck.
I explained that Cassie had taken my truck to the park because it had the child safety seat installed in it, and that she and Fox would be back pretty soon.
Lee said "I went to a yard sale of a guy who has yard sales all summer long an he had this bike I wont"
I asked if we could bungee it to the top of my truck and he explained;
"hit aint that kinda bike, girl! Its one of em pedal-motor bike scooters! I don't even need to get a title for it or nuthin!"
I asked if he thought if it would fit in the back of my truck, and he said it would.
As soon as Cassie and Fox returned Lee and I headed out to the man's house to get the liquor-cycle.
We pulled up and Lee went up to knock on the door. No one answered.
He tried the side door, then the garage door.
The man told Lee that someone had already bought the thing and that he should have just bought it when he came earlier.
On the drive home I told Lee that I was sorry that he missed out on the bike, and he said "Hell! Don't be sorry! Alls that means is that some other guy has to do all that work!"
I figured that was the best attitude he could have had.
Instead of accepting our mission as a failure, Lee asked me to drive "on up ere to th' liquor store". He told me of a wonderful drink he made when he was a bar tender in the tropics (the movie "Cocktail" was based on this time period in Lee's life) involving cream an vodka. Suspecting White Russians, I willingly proceeded to the store and waited in the car with Lee's open container hidden in the floorboard.
We returned home and Lee disappeared into his kitchen while Cassie, Jason, Fox and I ate a wonderful meal together. Before we were finished eating Lee was at our door instructing us to come over and "getcha uh drank".
We told him we would come over as soon as we got Mr. Fox to bed, but that wasn't soon enough for him. He brought the whole affair over to our porch, complete with shining, new high ball glasses, and an insulated carafe full of the concoction.
As I had hoped, he had prepared White Russians. It was then that I made a strong connection between Lee and Jeff Bridges' character in the Big Labowski, "The Dude". The White Russians, the peed on rug, the love of leisure sports.
Lee is a cross between 'The Dude', and 'Beetlejuice'.