immemorial damage
Monday 26 May 2008 | I like a cookie
You know those mobster movies where they talk about pulling down that one last score, the take-down of a lifetime?
1) Hancock Fabrics, unadvertised liquidation sale. All notions 55% off. I now have enough sewing machine needles to last until the end times. Patterns for 88¢. A bias-tape maker, and a schmantzy German seam ripper that actually RIPS the threads instead of just chewing thoughtfully on them ($1.85). Also an enormous green Olfa cutting mat which I somehow did not pay for at all, because the clerk was too addled to ring everything up properly and I was rather addled myself, what with screaming children and complaining husbands and grim-faced grandmothers arm-wrestling each other for boxes of glass-headed pins. Oh, and a dozen bobbins. And other assorted.
2) The otherwise unappealing big-box Joann. Remnants inexplicably, whimsically 75% off, per a bored manager’s dicta. Thus five pieces of long-coveted dupioni, more than ten yards, now drip-drying on a rack in the bathtub, having been washed with the Brujo’s pricey shampoo, while I ponder Provençal matelassage techniques, which take, you know, a measly 20,000+ hours per quilt. 5 patterns for $5. Rolls of 100% cotton quilt batting. Tea-dyed muslin backing. A pinking blade for the rotary cutter. And other assorted.
The dem’d total? $90.
Obviously PMSing pseudo-quilters should not be allowed to attend bank-holiday Monday sales at fabric stores. Fortunately I am now doubled over and thus safe from my own debit card, in no mood to buy titanium sewing machine needles. I collapsed in bed next to a virus-shedding, snuffly Brujo; in a paracetemol-induced haze then climbed out of bed at one point, still thoroughly asleep, to examine our (completely pedestrian, beige, made-in-China, polyester-stuffed) comforter, which I, at that moment, believed to be an antique blood-red silk quilt covered with blue-and-gold paisley figures. It was not and so I got back into bed, freshly confused.
When I am not in mind-blowing pain I will post pictures, and you can all place your pre-orders now for custom silk quilts, starting at around $599. Just as I typed that Pyewacket began trying to hack up a furball, which may be a commentary also on my preposterous price range.
That, and: clusters of day laborers standing on the curbs of Tartarus, flagging down passing pickup trucks whose drivers look like potential employers. The panaderías closed, the men in their plaid shirts and workboots laughing and smoking and goofing around waiting, trying to make an extra few hours’ wage. Why doesn’t la migra just pick them up, then? Patent hypocrisy— something which I know a bit about, driving numbly home with a useless trunkful of digested mulberry leaves.
When the negative masculine starts to wave his arms and groan like Zozobra, it’s time to hit the duvet again—
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