I suppose this won't be the last time Genius makes me think of a crazed Joan Crawford. I wish it was so. But I'm a realist.
Just before leaving on Saturday, he went to the laundry room to gather his wardrobe. The wardrobe I so lovingly tended when he was here, hanging his cotton shirts so they wouldn't shrink into revealing midriff tops, carefully sorting colors, bleaching the whites. The wardrobe Genius tossed all willy-nilly into the giant Whirlpool, proclaiming, "Our washer is so great! I can get all my clothes in it. At school, the washers are tiny. It takes me two or three loads to get it done every week."
Yeah. No lover of Whirlpool am I. Val's a Sears Kenmore gal. I would have used mine for a lifetime, even though only one of the three wash settings worked, after that unfortunate inundation of broken-pipe water in my old house that came halfway up Kennie's body, like floodwater in that insurance commercial with the dude reading the paper and the kid playing on the floor and their dog unaware that he would soon need to get to paddling. Hick declared that we had an issue with Kennie after a brief spate of leakage, and made me go that very morning to the Whirlpool store and buy a floor model, which is too deep for Val to reach the bottom for errant socks glued to the spinner, even though upon installing Whirly, he discovered the problem was in the cold water connection, and went another four months before fixing it.
But we're not here to complain about Hick today. There are 364 more days for that in the upcoming year. We're here to discuss Genius's newest obsession:
SILVER WIRE HANGERS!
"Mom. Don't let Dad throw any more of these away! I need them. Do you know they don't make them any more? You can't find them anywhere. I went to Walmart in College Town, because I ran out of hangers, and all they had was those stupid plastic ones. They're crap! I had to pay 98 cents for eight of them!"
"Yeah. I hate those plastic ones. I gain a classroom cabinet full of them every year on graduation night. I knew you liked the big wire hangers. That's why I put The Pony's shirts on the small ones. So what if his shoulders slope. I knew you liked those special silver ones, but I thought Dad only got a couple of them at random."
"No! Every time you guys are gone, I go into your closet and take them. One time, I caught him THROWING AWAY A WHOLE SET OF THEM! Don't ever let him do that again!"
"Well, he gets whatever the uniform company gives him. And he never takes the dirty clothes back on hangers. So he gets too many."
"Save the silver ones for me!"
"Okay. I'll try to remember."
That boy was quite emphatic. He's turning into a regular Milford Fierce.
Perhaps you can hold a bunch of those hangers hostage, until Genius capitulates and utters a particular phrase?
ReplyDeleteWhat phrase would you most like to hear him utter?
I could certainly save Genius a whole slew of silver hangers! Just give me the say so.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember the last time I saw a metal hanger. Ours are all plastic.
ReplyDeleteSooo...what is he REALLY doing with those hangers? Door wreaths for his girl friend? Fairy wings for his little cousins? Or is he converting them into a Slim Jim to break into cars. Maybe he just uses them to snake hair out of drains and paper clips out of vacuum cleaner hoses. He knows what any McGyver knows--wire hangers are TOOLS.
ReplyDeleteWe get those with He Who Tows' uniforms. I cut them and made supports for my plants with heavy blooms. You can buy them in the garden center, but I just clipped them in half along the part you would hang pants on with wire cutters and bent the rest to conform with my wishes. The cut ends go into the ground and the hanger part is turned sideways to lovingly cradle a bloom that would droop to the ground. I am cheap and clever .... and green. I recycle!
ReplyDeleteSioux,
ReplyDeleteI would love to hear him declare, "Once again, I stand corrected!" Because that's what he's been shouting at me several times a month since he was five. I am downright exhausted from standing corrected.
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Lynn,
Thank you for that kind offer, but I see no need to spoil him. Spare the wire hangers, I say! Anything worth having is worth working for. If it means berating his father, so be it. I will gladly welcome him to my world, where nothing comes easy when Hick is involved.
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Stephen,
Well, you're safe from a home invasion by Genius.
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Leenie,
Maybe he's making a really long shepherd's crook to snag the Walmart workers in the fleece throw department. To tell them in no uncertain terms: "NO MORE LEOPARD THROWS!"
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Kathy,
You are a regular Martha Stewart, without the ex-con status.