There are certain things which one never misplaces. The front
door, the couch in the living room, the kitchen table.
My mother always said that it was good my head was attached
to my shoulders: I'd never be able to lose it! So you get the
gist. Quasi-permanently attached or heavy elements of a
household are rarely misplaced. Although in our day, friends
of ours, indeed, returned from work one evening to find their
front door missing. After checking with the neighbors to find
out whether it had been dismantled and taken out for repair,
they came to the conclusion that robbers had decided not to
forgo the gain of using the aluminum frame for recyclable
scrap. The windowpanes from the aluminum doors were neatly
standing next to the border fence. They weren't so readily
convertible into (il)legal tender, I guess.
Then there is the other category: those items which are not
so stationary and whether they measure in on the scale of
importance as "hardly so," or "excruciatingly so," seem to
have been created to try our wits and our patience till who-
knows-when. These are, among others, the checkbook, the
credit card, the car/house/mailbox keys and the dustpan.
Why should one include a seemingly minor object on a list of
such fiscally major accoutrements? Because time is money and
"looking for the dustpan" seems to beg at least as much of
this commodity each week as looking for those other "just
can't move without 'ems"!
Of course, we tried determining a spot where the dustpan
could be placed once someone was finished using it. The
problem was there were too many `someone's who hadn't heard
about the agreement. After that, we simply placed it on top
of the garbage in the pail. This arrangement lasted until the
above-mentioned pan invariably got covered with more garbage
and we needed to replace a few before we realized to which
fate they were all succumbing.
In the meantime, when it's missing, we have to review all of
the evidence. Who used it last? Are they finished using it?
Is it resting on top of the last layer of garbage? Is it
buried under the last two layers of garbage? Was it placed
back in its designated space, behind the fridge, out on the
porch, between the cabinets, propped up against the wall or
wedged onto the broom handle (wasn't that a brilliant
idea?)... You get the picture? Back to brainstorming.
When our elevator broke down and we had to lug ourselves plus
every heavy purchase up the 85 relentless stairs, I didn't
mind too much. However, when arriving at the top, I often
suffered the indignity of panting in the hallway, surrounded
by all of those amused packages while my key-ring with the
desired article evaded my grasp as I rummaged to the bottom
of my capacious handbag. After experiencing such
exasperation, ascent after torturous ascent, I found a
brilliant solution. I decided to treat my key-ring like a pet
and constructed a leash.
I took a nice sturdy nylon belt from an old worn-out backpack
and attached one end to the seam inside my bag, near to the
top where the bag first opens when I unzip it. On the other
end of the strap, I folded back a one-inch loop and sewed it
down tight. Then I inserted a simple, metal coil key-ring
into this loop. Voila! when I unzip my bag, I catch that
attached end of the strap, give a tug and run my finger along
the strap until my keys come a-jingling and a-jumping up into
my delighted fingers! Almost as good a trick as the car,
which jumps, flashes its lights and yaps when the owner hits
his remote control door unlocker.
I realized that this is the reason I never lose my telephone!
It's always attached to the socket in the wall. Also when it
gets lonely, it rings and calls me to give it a little
attention. Just like a pet which needs to be shown regularly
who the boss really is. So now I know what I'll do with that
evasive dustpan! I'll get some strong elastic and tie one end
onto a hook on the porch.
Come to think of it, when I was young, we never had a
dustpan. My mother, in her ingenuity, would fold an old piece
of junk mail in half and use it to catch what she had swept
together. Or she would use an old envelope, which was on its
way to the dustbin anyway. What a great way to recycle that
paper! Not only that -- no more tripping on a plastic dustpan
which cracks so easily and needs replacing. No more searching
for that elusive arbiter of household lint, under- bed
kittens, haircut or arts and craft clippings.
Best of all, here you have the perfect solution to finding
the dustpan. There will always be a never-ending supply of
such easily affordable, readily available, indispensible,
disposable dustpans.
Wait a minute -- we're living in Israel, 2004. What if
there's a mail strike?
