The Fireplace Story
This may be the first of many stories I finally write down about the ten months or so that I shared an apartment with my best friend/sister from another mother/ partner in crime, otherwise known as Hurricane Miah, and/or The Miahnator. (Yes, for those of you that know my kids’ names, Little Bit was named after her. It was the least I could do, in recognition of the fact that she actually witnessed all three births. Poor girl!)
So anyway. Miah and I had an apartment together off-campus in our junior year of college, and it quickly became a gathering place for all of our friends. Sometimes unannounced, but that is a story for another day. On this particular occasion, our guest was expected. It was November, and we’d had the place for a few months. Anyone who’s lived in Houston knows, there is really no need for a fireplace except for possibly a brief window of time between, say, Christmas and mid-January. But because we had loved the IDEA of a fireplace, we’d used it several times by then (usually either sitting around in shorts and tank tops, or with the A/C on high, but by golly we were gonna use the thing). The guest we were expecting was our ex-boyfriend. To clarify, he was my ex as of about 2 months before, and her ex as of about 5 years before. We were vigorously cleaning the apartment, but didn’t know what to do about the smoke stains on the wall above the fireplace. See, it took us a while to get the hang of the whole “flue” thing. As we were debating our options, the phone rang. Eric, the airman from North Carolina, was no longer going to be arriving at noon the next day. He was going to be arriving at midnight that night. This drove us into high gear, and we headed for Wal-Mart to buy a small can of paint. Now, if you’ve ever tried to match paint, you know our dilemma. There are roughly 200 billion shades of off-white. We spent a healthy half-hour arguing over just which can was the right shade, before I gave in to her selection. So we go home, try the paint – too light. I’m dispatched to Wal-Mart to get the other shade, while she begins the ghastly chore of cleaning Honey Bunny’s cage. I go straight for my original choice, bring it home, and triumphantly slap it on the wall – only to find that it, too, is too light. Well, we don’t have time to run through all 200 billion colors looking for the right one, so instead we begin to look around the house for something to darken it up, just a tad. Finally, we settle on vanilla extract.
Yes. Vanilla extract.
Which darkens the paint up some (we just mixed a small bit on the lid) but not enough. What else? Of course… cinnamon… Close, but no cigar… But just a pinch of nutmeg, and – TA DA!!! – success… We begin to slather the concoction on the wall, and just about that time the door opens. Another friend, one of those who frequently dropped in without warning, was dropping in without warning. He walks in to the sight of both of us, giggly from the adventure and slightly high on paint fumes, kneeling in front of the fireplace, as the bunny scampers merrily through the apartment.
He walks right back out, shaking his head. It’s something we wound up seeing quite often in those 10 months.
Well the wall wound up looking perfect, and when Eric eventually made it to the house (a story in and of itself, thanks to Houston freeways and inexperienced drivers), everything was ship-shape. He did comment, though, that whenever we lit the fireplace, the whole house suddenly smelled like cookies baking.
So anyway. Miah and I had an apartment together off-campus in our junior year of college, and it quickly became a gathering place for all of our friends. Sometimes unannounced, but that is a story for another day. On this particular occasion, our guest was expected. It was November, and we’d had the place for a few months. Anyone who’s lived in Houston knows, there is really no need for a fireplace except for possibly a brief window of time between, say, Christmas and mid-January. But because we had loved the IDEA of a fireplace, we’d used it several times by then (usually either sitting around in shorts and tank tops, or with the A/C on high, but by golly we were gonna use the thing). The guest we were expecting was our ex-boyfriend. To clarify, he was my ex as of about 2 months before, and her ex as of about 5 years before. We were vigorously cleaning the apartment, but didn’t know what to do about the smoke stains on the wall above the fireplace. See, it took us a while to get the hang of the whole “flue” thing. As we were debating our options, the phone rang. Eric, the airman from North Carolina, was no longer going to be arriving at noon the next day. He was going to be arriving at midnight that night. This drove us into high gear, and we headed for Wal-Mart to buy a small can of paint. Now, if you’ve ever tried to match paint, you know our dilemma. There are roughly 200 billion shades of off-white. We spent a healthy half-hour arguing over just which can was the right shade, before I gave in to her selection. So we go home, try the paint – too light. I’m dispatched to Wal-Mart to get the other shade, while she begins the ghastly chore of cleaning Honey Bunny’s cage. I go straight for my original choice, bring it home, and triumphantly slap it on the wall – only to find that it, too, is too light. Well, we don’t have time to run through all 200 billion colors looking for the right one, so instead we begin to look around the house for something to darken it up, just a tad. Finally, we settle on vanilla extract.
Yes. Vanilla extract.
Which darkens the paint up some (we just mixed a small bit on the lid) but not enough. What else? Of course… cinnamon… Close, but no cigar… But just a pinch of nutmeg, and – TA DA!!! – success… We begin to slather the concoction on the wall, and just about that time the door opens. Another friend, one of those who frequently dropped in without warning, was dropping in without warning. He walks in to the sight of both of us, giggly from the adventure and slightly high on paint fumes, kneeling in front of the fireplace, as the bunny scampers merrily through the apartment.
He walks right back out, shaking his head. It’s something we wound up seeing quite often in those 10 months.
Well the wall wound up looking perfect, and when Eric eventually made it to the house (a story in and of itself, thanks to Houston freeways and inexperienced drivers), everything was ship-shape. He did comment, though, that whenever we lit the fireplace, the whole house suddenly smelled like cookies baking.
posted by SaraSmile | 11:27 AM
1 Comments:
mmmmmmmmmmmm..........cookies
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