Thursday, February 14, 2013

a welcome light

I did it without really thinking.
I just pulled the door shut with a click.
It was the click of doom.

A visitor had arrived with Valentine greetings.
As I hurried down the hall to answer the door, I paused at a doorway.
The room beyond seemed outrageously cluttered.
Not the clutter of daily life.
Not the clutter of a working room.
It was more the clutter of serious housekeeping dysfunction.
Hoarder clutter.
The room is at times, my husbands classroom, his computer room where he toils away at online courses.
It is also my sewing storage room, and a place for toys of a bulky nature.
It is also a temporary storage solution for two pieces of 'family' furniture.
These things are not dwelling in harmony.
They are competing for space and the winner varies by the week.
It is a room of shame.
This is something I can fix.
It lies within my power to change this, but today, I took the easy way and closed the door.
If ever I needed an object lesson on the wisdom of taking the easy way, today provided it in capital letters.
The door has a keyed lock which is unusual on an interior door.
We have closed the door a million times in the eight years we have lived here and suffered no ill effects.
There is a way to lock it from inside, but we have never used that function.
We have never paid attention to that function.
I had forgotten that function even existed.
But somewhere along the way, in recent days no doubt, the locking function had been set.
It was just a matter of time.
A doomsday clock was ticking.

After our guest wended her way homeward, none the wiser as to the shameful state of my spare room,
(spare?! Hah! what a laughable pun) my husband innocently turned his steps toward school work.
His hand seized the door knob and he turned and pushed the door.
"Why is the door locked?" he asked, baffled.
He brought out keys that had not seen the light of day in many a year.
He riffled here and there but to no avail.
The door remained locked.
He descended into the garage and returned bearing tools.
Quietly, he removed the door trim and eventually was able to open the door.
"Uh.... Happy Valentines Day," I said, putting my arms around my husband, gratefully seeing in his eyes a welcome light.

2 comments:

  1. Oh dear ... I lived through that experience with you, Glenda! Next step would have been climbing through a window! Oh my ...

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  2. Thank you for the sympathy or empathy. I'll take either.

    ReplyDelete