The Ridiculousness Of It All

 Thursday morning and it’s cold. I was cold in the nighttime, adding blanket upon blanket in order to make it through. When I got up it was 68 degrees in my condo and I debated, momentarily, before I thought, what the hell, and turned on the heat. Just to take the chill off, I decided.

When I had showered, dressed and had breakfast, I knew it was time to face re-installing the duvet on my bed. I say installing because the duvet itself has been cleaned and spent the summer folded and zipped into a plastic case and the pale blue, flowered duvet cover, also cleaned, has spent the summer draped over a hanger in my coat closet. Fine. So what’s the problem? They are both there and ready to go.

It’s me. Armed with some “green” window cleaner, I’ll drag out the small stepladder and step right up to clean the chandelier hanging in the foyer. I’ll take books off shelves, dust and line them up, even clean out my desk with more enthusiasm and confidence than I can re install that darned duvet each fall. It’s queen sized. Shouldn’t be a problem, but it is. If there is a secret to this household task—and there must be—I don’t know it.

I decide to time myself.

 And my first attempt at stuffing the sparkling white duvet into the linen coverlet fails utterly. I simply do not have the sides lined up correctly. Perhaps if I turn the duvet around? I try again. I have already spent seven minutes just trying to figure out which is the length and which is the width of both pieces involved. They seem so much the same.

I try stuffing the duvet in a second time only to discover that somehow the duvet cover has become twisted, obliterating any hope of success on this round.

Finally I lay the duvet cover on the bed, nice and smooth, the end with the closure buttons hanging over the foot of the bed. Next I lay the duvet over it.

I stand back and stare at the layers on the bed thinking, now what? You can do this, Cecily. Anyone can do this. You just have to breathe and think about it.

I grab the duvet and, gripping the top edge I throw the rest of its pristine whiteness onto the floor. I then proceed to stuff the “lead” end of the duvet into the coverlet, pushing it and dragging it through, shaking the cover as I go.

Enough. I get the whole thing jammed in there in great lumps and then, grabbing both corner ends of the cover at the foot of the bed, I shake it as high and as hard as I can, over and over, trying to get the duvet to fill out its linen envelope. And by now I am laughing. Laughing and shaking that darned thing up and down.  Gradually the duvet begins to inhabit most of the cover.

 Somehow I fail to match up the closing buttons with the correct holes and I end up at the corner with more holes than buttons. So I need to begin again. On the second try, I do better. The duvet, if still somewhat askew, is finally secured within the cover.

The entire process has taken about twenty minutes.

No need to say this, I’m certain, but I must. This is not a world peace issue. This is just me bumbling through a silly household chore much in the way I bumble through so many things in my life: part determination, part, a pretty steady sense of the ridiculousness of it all. My own, especially.

Sent By A Friend Too funny!

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We mourn the deaths of the ten students in Oregon. Many of us wring our hands in despair. President Obama is angry and so are we. What is it with America that we cannot legislate gun control? These horrific mass shootings are our national shame.