I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten-Cent Store

I do something odd.

Yes, of course, I do many things which are odd and that is why people either really like me or let my calls go to voice-mail, but we shall speak of a specific oddity today. Lately, I looked entirely too happy while doing chores around the house. Emptying the dishwasher or putting clothing on the drying rack rarely brings out small private smiles and humming unless you’re drugged, which I’m not, no matter how many times I explain to a doctor how drugging me might cause fewer people to let my calls to go voice-mail. Here’s where all the happy stems from.

I dislike nearly every thing I own. I have disgust for my dishes. I loathe my linens. I have a grievance with my glasses and so on. For some items, I liked them when I bought them but that was a long time ago. Others, I inherited and thought “Don’t love it but it will work until it wears out and I can justify buying something I like.” And then we had a child and the child had needs and the needs had payment schedules and I have made do. [Consort hates that phrase, “Make do.” He swears it sounds fecal. We won’t tell him I used it.]

For years, interacting with these items made me feel awful because...well, let’s consider our sheets. The sheets have a perfectly adequate thread-count but the fitted sheets and the top sheets don’t exactly match because there was a big sale and I went for thread count and not matching. The only matching set on deep discount which would fit on our bed had a tiger print with a background of orange, proving there is something worse than the phrase “Making do.”

Every week, I’m confronted with the terrible truth that the sheets are good enough and that I can have a coordinated bed or I can have a daughter with straight teeth. I just heard one of you pipe in. “Go to Target!” you caroled. “Spend a little money and get what you like! It’ll hold you until you can get more expensive stuff!” That’s how I got my bathroom towels.

At what point did mid-price towels stop absorbing water? I just know those high-end towels do more than weakly blot before gasp-whispering "Couldn’t possibly drink in any more.” When I step out of the shower, Squeakers the cat lunges in to the bathroom and sets to licking my ankles. It’s weird and I’d stop her but she removes more water than my towels do. So I continue to use, launder and re-use these towels. I also continue to scowl because I’m grown and without ever putting it into words I always assumed part of being grown is having better stuff. I have grad-student stuff. I am done with making do, and yet I continue to make with the do.

A few weeks ago, I was emptying the dishwasher and confronting my least favorite coffee cup. The drycleaners gave us this cup for Christmas two years ago and I’m very tired of looking at their dorky logo while I wait for my water to boil. Still, I can’t give it up because there’s nothing wrong with it besides the small chip in the handle and how it fills me with despair. I said out loud, “I win the lottery, you are so out of here.” Instantly, my mood brightened. I put away the blameless salad plates I so despise and thought, That lottery money won’t even be in the bank before I get rid of you.

The dishwasher was emptied in a trice. I looked around the kitchen with new, joyous eyes. Coffee-maker which works fine but burps? See ya. The napkins which never exactly matched the walls? Someone will love you. Someone far away. The hanging baskets which work fine unless the barometric pressure changes or they’re feeling a little emotional at which point they tip over? Go deposit bananas and vitamins on another head, pal.

There are a couple of flaws to this new attitude. First, I don’t actually play the lottery but from what I understand of odds that means I’m only slightly less likely to win than any given player. Second, were I to suddenly swim in money while wearing a bathing-suit made of money, I’d end up looking at my serviceable-yet-crappy stuff and think “Let’s just give that money to the Red Cross for Japan. And Japanese animal-rescue. And American animal-rescue. And educate a few hundred girls in Afghanistan. And feed some American kids who don’t have food security.”

I’m not placing any halo on myself, I just know what actual money would do to my conscience and there’s no towel so expensive it could absorb that guilt. I’d make do and write checks. I’d hate my blender but could sleep. But in my imagination, I’m throwing about 85% of the items in my house into Hefty bags and taking them to Goodwill. I’m removing them from my car -- Wait, I hate my car. I’m removing them from my new car. Or possibly my personal assistant is doing that for me.

In my imagination, I’m laughing a rich tinkling little laugh as I head to all those lovely stores where everything matches and a coffee cup, upon developing a chip, softly implodes into ceramic dust .

In reality, I fold laundry and smile a contented and wealthy smile.