I live in the sticks...
And, man!! Do I have to move!!
Yesterday I was at home doing not particularly anything, when the doorbell rang. To my surprise, it was not the Purolator guy (eBay junkie that I am, a bad habit I'm trying to quit!), but one of my neighbors from the house to the west. It's an ugly little 5-unit building with no second floor (2 of the apartments are underground, I think), and I am not fond of several of the occupants. This one I hadn't met yet, so I don't know whether she's OK or not. She wanted to know if I had been at home all day, because sometime during the time she was at work, an unknown party came along and uprooted and stole her clothesline!?!?! How crazy is that? It was an umbrella-style square clothesline like the one I have in my backyard, but smaller. I'm not worried about my clothesline, because it's cemented into the ground, and it's in the back. Her mom was home all day and didn't hear anything, so she wondered if I had seen or heard anything. Unfortunately for her I was inside with the wicked children all day and didn't know anything about it.
Time for an uncomfortable admission: I'm a chicken. Yeah, I admit it. I didn't tell her that another neighbor had once made a comment about 'shouldn't be hanging clothes out in front of the house'. But maybe I can be excused, for two reasons: 1) It was a comment made long ago, when they didn't have a clothesline, they just hung the clothes on the front porch railing; and 2) I don't remember which neighbor said it. Sounds like maybe whoever it was got tired of seeing clothes drying in the front of the house and did something about it? How desperate do you have to be to steal a clothesline? It's not like you can sell it on eBay, can you? Wait, scratch that, I just did an eBay search and it came up with 34 items. I LOVE the internet, you do a search for octogenarians who love to eat chicken feet, and it asks "With their dentures in or out?" (Oops, I'm not trying to offend anyone of any age or the dentally-challenged, it's just an example of what crazy websites you can find!) (Yeah, try it!! MSN found 135 results for that search, no lie!!!)
Where was I? Oh yeah, clotheslines. I was tempted to invite the poor lady to use mine, but wisely kept my mouth shut: with spring here, I am already feeling guilty about taking up the line for an entire day once a week as my tenant only has a small apartment sized washer and no dryer; I have a super-capacity gas dryer (it came with the house, along with matching washer, a fridge, a stove and a dishwasher. I love it!), but I am trying to do my One-Tonne Challenge thing. Not to mention gas prices and electricity prices going ever upward encourages me even more to use free wind and sun to dry clothes. And they smell better, I think. Later, I did ask my tenant Rose if she had seen anything when she went out in the morning, but she hadn't. Then we got to talking about crazy washing stuff, and she told me that once somebody had stolen her underwear off the clothesline at another apartment. Her philosophy is that 'if someone is desperate enough to steal underwear, they obviously need it more than me'. Very sensible, I think. So here: I am offering to overlook the thieving of my underwear by anybody who needs it more than I do. Just please leave me ONE clean pair so I can go get some more.....!
Yesterday I was at home doing not particularly anything, when the doorbell rang. To my surprise, it was not the Purolator guy (eBay junkie that I am, a bad habit I'm trying to quit!), but one of my neighbors from the house to the west. It's an ugly little 5-unit building with no second floor (2 of the apartments are underground, I think), and I am not fond of several of the occupants. This one I hadn't met yet, so I don't know whether she's OK or not. She wanted to know if I had been at home all day, because sometime during the time she was at work, an unknown party came along and uprooted and stole her clothesline!?!?! How crazy is that? It was an umbrella-style square clothesline like the one I have in my backyard, but smaller. I'm not worried about my clothesline, because it's cemented into the ground, and it's in the back. Her mom was home all day and didn't hear anything, so she wondered if I had seen or heard anything. Unfortunately for her I was inside with the wicked children all day and didn't know anything about it.
Time for an uncomfortable admission: I'm a chicken. Yeah, I admit it. I didn't tell her that another neighbor had once made a comment about 'shouldn't be hanging clothes out in front of the house'. But maybe I can be excused, for two reasons: 1) It was a comment made long ago, when they didn't have a clothesline, they just hung the clothes on the front porch railing; and 2) I don't remember which neighbor said it. Sounds like maybe whoever it was got tired of seeing clothes drying in the front of the house and did something about it? How desperate do you have to be to steal a clothesline? It's not like you can sell it on eBay, can you? Wait, scratch that, I just did an eBay search and it came up with 34 items. I LOVE the internet, you do a search for octogenarians who love to eat chicken feet, and it asks "With their dentures in or out?" (Oops, I'm not trying to offend anyone of any age or the dentally-challenged, it's just an example of what crazy websites you can find!) (Yeah, try it!! MSN found 135 results for that search, no lie!!!)
Where was I? Oh yeah, clotheslines. I was tempted to invite the poor lady to use mine, but wisely kept my mouth shut: with spring here, I am already feeling guilty about taking up the line for an entire day once a week as my tenant only has a small apartment sized washer and no dryer; I have a super-capacity gas dryer (it came with the house, along with matching washer, a fridge, a stove and a dishwasher. I love it!), but I am trying to do my One-Tonne Challenge thing. Not to mention gas prices and electricity prices going ever upward encourages me even more to use free wind and sun to dry clothes. And they smell better, I think. Later, I did ask my tenant Rose if she had seen anything when she went out in the morning, but she hadn't. Then we got to talking about crazy washing stuff, and she told me that once somebody had stolen her underwear off the clothesline at another apartment. Her philosophy is that 'if someone is desperate enough to steal underwear, they obviously need it more than me'. Very sensible, I think. So here: I am offering to overlook the thieving of my underwear by anybody who needs it more than I do. Just please leave me ONE clean pair so I can go get some more.....!