The Mystery of the Missing Blanket (Rated A for Adorable)
Way back when my entire family lived in Florence, when I was in high school and worried about what everyone thought of me, before Kasey and I really knew each other and before I really knew myself, we lived in a place we called, "The House on County Road 41." We had just recently moved in, and I had a bedroom downstairs, one I thought was cool when we first started looking at the house, but later realized was quite horrible, because it was stationed between Audra's room and the laundry room, and since me and Audra rarely got along, I often found myself either demanding that she unlock her door so I could pass through to mine, or dealing with the constant barrage of people who found it secretly amusing to piss me off, then demand to be let through my room at all ungodly hours so they could use the laundry room.
Also, the room was originally covered in dark blue wallpaper with a small paisley print, with mallard ducks as a border. The previous owner of my bedroom was a teenage girl with a fascination for small animals and reptiles, and the laundry room had not only been used for the usual by the family before us, but also as a place to store several litter boxes. Of course, the smell eventually faded (and was somewhat replaced by my cats, Bitsy and Paws, and after their disappearances, by their offspring, Pig), and Mom agreed to let me replace the wallpaper, but we only got as far as ripping most of it off the walls and leaving it all over the floor, and until we moved out, the room remained the color of yellow wallpaper glue, which I always meant to remove, but never actually got around to doing.
But that's not important. What is important, however, is that Mom also allowed me to purchase a new set of Joe Boxer sheets and a new Joe Boxer comforter for my new bed, which I got shortly after we moved into the new house. The sheets were white with various smiley faces all over them, and the comforter was made to look like a quilt, with a royal blue border and several scraps of fabric, stitched to look like boxers, as the squares. We bought it as a set from Target for $50.00, and that included the matching shams and pillow cases.
Of course, in the years since, I have lost both shams, and one or two of the pillow cases, but have managed to keep the sheets and comforter. In our various moves, the remaining parts to the set have been separated, and while the sheets were usually kept in a closet in Mom's house, that comforter has been washed and washed several times, and always ended up on my bed, no matter where I was staying.
And as cheesy as it sounds, I do sleep better when I have it, I have always referred to it lovingly as my "blankie" - probably in reference to the fact that while I actually did have a pink blankie with white lace trim when I was younger, I was never allowed to sleep with it, and it did not last as long as Lorna's yellow blankie, or Emma's white one (which are both very adorable stories for another time), or even Mr. Bunnykins, the stuffed rabbit I've had since I was one and continued to keep in some toybox for the loooongest, until I made the mistake of donating it to Emma and during one of her phases, she gave away to a friend as a "birthday present" - and while most of this paragraph is not important, either, I want you to know that my blanket was lived well to its proper name as a comforter.
I mean, I really do sleep better when I have it. I usually don't freak out when I don't have it around, but after a few days, I start to miss it, and there is a noticeable difference in the quality of my sleep when I am snuggled in my Joe Boxer blankie. So of course, I was doing everything possible to ensure that even if I did not recieve a single CD or scrap of clothing from Kasey's house, I at least got my blanket back. (Although, I also want it known that I was irritated when my giant stack of CDs was cut almost in half when it was returned to me, and I know which ones are missing and am anxiously awaiting their return.)
Still, I got my blanket back, and I slept like the dead that night. And a few days later, it made the trip outside to be my blanket while I laid out on the deck and tanned, and it came back inside to sit on the couch with me while I cooled off. (This is where I fucked up.)
Unfortunately, I left it on the couch to go on about my day, and since I tend not to notice its disappearance for a few days, it took me awhile before I actually stayed awake one night, realizing that I had not seen it in quite some time. I thought back to when I had seen it last, and remembered that not only had I left it on the now clean couch, in the now pristine living room, I was not in a house where I could trust it had simply been moved or thrown in the washing machine.
No, this was the House of Dave, where anything - and we all know I mean anything - left in the living room overnight is thrown away. Now, I wanted to believe deep-down that he would not be stupid enough to throw away something as expensive to replace as a comforter, or that Mom would have stopped him to say that that particular blanket was irreplaceable to me... and believing such, I tried to think back to where he might have left it. At this point, I also remembered seeing the upstairs bathroom filled almost to the brim with assorted clothes that Dave had more than likely picked from the floor surrounding the washer and dryer, and figured maybe he had stuck it up there. Since it was obvious I was not going to get any sleep until I had recovered my beloved blanket, I moved to get out of bed and head upstairs to look.
Of course, this is the point where I realize that with the downstairs bathroom out of commission - yet another story for another time - there had been no fewer than four people going through that small bathroom, likely throwing every bit of clothing back into the laundry room, or strewing it in various piles throughout the upper floor of the house. This only worries me further, but I continue to go upstairs and dig through every basket in the laundry room, and not finding it there, going through a rather disgusting and wet pile of clothes in a basket in the center of the bathroom floor. Still not finding it, I tried to swallow the anger and frustration swelling inside me, sighed, and went outside, where I remembered seeing a certain shower curtain lying in the trash can. I didn't want to believe he would be dumb enough to throw it away, but this is Dave we're talking about, so it was worth checking out.
So I stand outside, in my pyjamas and socks, and proceed to throw open both trash can lids and pull out numerous bags of trash, as well as a few pizza boxes, a Wal-Mart sack filled with alcohol bottles, but only managing to recover the tossed shower curtain. Disappointed, I left the trash strewn across the carport, certain that Dave is at fault and that when I prove it, he can clean the mess back up his own damned self, and head back inside.
I walked through the kitchen, again noting how clean the living room is, and up the hallway, where I pause at Emma's door, thinking that surely she didn't, but there is still a small chance that this isn't Dave at all, but my little sister.
And there she was.
Lying in bed, sound asleep and snoring softly, is my little sister, clearly a Jessica-wannabe, curled up like a Joe Boxer burrito in her bed. I sighed, closed her door quietly behind me, and went back downstairs, resigned to sleep yet again without my blankie, but thankful that it was in safe hands and could easily be returned to me tomorrow morning.
Because so help me God, if that little munchkin decides to donate my blanket to some friend as another present, I will kill her.