Three Little Things

Three Little Things That Got Me Through This Week!

Friends, it’s Monday again! I hope your weekend was everything you wanted & needed it to be & you’re ready to face the new week refreshed & recharged. I hope you did not have a case of the Sunday Scaries. As a kid, I remember having to take a bath on Sunday nights if I wanted to watch “The Wonderful World of Disney” on TV before bed. Even though a lot of what they showed back then probably wouldn’t hold up so well today, I think old Walt was onto something in terms of a nationwide weekly panacea to ward off the Sunday Scaries from children all over America through the medium of network television. I know we used to say television was the opiate of the masses, but that was before we had an actual opioid epidemic & realized we probably shouldn’t say shit like that anymore. This little mass member definitely misses zipping into her footie jammies to glaze over while watching a harmless dose of “That Darn Cat” while forgetting all about the mimeographed spelling test that would be landing on her desk in t-minus 12 hours. Where is the “That Darn Cat” for adults in 2022, I ask! I don’t have the answer. However, I can tell you about three small things that did help me get through last week well enough that my Sunday Scaries were so, so small.*

If you listened to the podcast & heard me tell the story of how I believed I went through menopause all in one day, you know I gave my son Lincoln a very grave warning as he rummaged the cabinet for a snack. “Don’t. Eat. My. Period. Cookies.” Because he’s a good kid, or because he was terrified, he did not. Well, people asked, and here they are. Trader Joe’s Raspberry Stars. In my opinion, the only way to improve upon shortbread is by adding chocolate, lemon curd or raspberry, raspberry being the best move, again, in my opinion! And although they’re not an exact match, they do remind me of the woofle jelly cake slices Bob Cratchit’s children dream of in the Razzleberry Dressing song in Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, which is my second favorite iteration of A Christmas Carol after The Muppets. Is it childish of me to enjoy things more if I can relate them to obscure pop culture moments? Maybe, but next time you’re reaching up to close the back hatch on your minivan, pretend you’re spinning the big wheel on The Price is Right & tell me it doesn’t make that one mundane movement a tiny bit more thrilling!

Related, some of you have asked for a “Don’t Eat My Period Cookies” cookie jar. Is that a thing you would want to have? Should we ask Summer if that’s possible to make?

If you get your period, I’d love to know what your “period cookies” are. If you don’t get your period, I wanna know what you reach for during those periods when your guts are in charge of what your mouth is doing.

Ok, the second thing isn’t really a small thing. They were kinda pricey, in my opinion. Laundry drawers. Why didn’t we get them when we bought the washer/dryer a few years ago? Because, we had to buy a new washer dryer to put in the house we just bought & we drew the line at 600 EXTRA dollars for the matching laundry pedestals. But it wasn’t long before I knew we’d made a serious error. See, our laundry room doesn’t just have an incredibly ugly tan tile floor with gross grout, it is also tiny AF. You cannot get low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low to put your laundry in & pull it out without bumping your ass, elbows & all your knees on the back wall, into the doors & falling over & dropping all your wet panties on the ugly floor where I just know they’re sopping up something that has leeched into that grout over the years.

Anyway, by the time I realized the situation was untenable, these particular drawers were seemingly discontinued? Or there were supply chain problems? Both? I have tried to order them many times only to have the order canceled due to zero stock. Eventually, we developed a plan to build a custom laundry platform instead. But, guys, if you’ve been following my closet saga, you know we already have too many DIY projects on our plate, AKA one DIY weekend project that is stretching into a solid month now. Plus, there’s a lumber shortage. So, even though we’d verbally committed to somehow cobbling one together out of questionable & rusty nail-ridden wood we’d salvaged from taking apart some very puzzling shelves the prior owner had built in our garage, I will admit that, when I had a free moment & some spare optimism, I continued entering the search terms “Bosch, 24” laundry drawer, washer, dryer” into Google. It was my version of searching Facebook to find your high school crush & crossing your fingers that he’d be there, still cute, & not wearing a MAGA hat in his profile pic.

Lo and behold, one recent afternoon, I got a hit. In some appliance warehouse, just one hour from where I live, they had freshly listed two washer pedestals & one dryer pedestal! My pulse quickened. When the chat bot on the corner of the site’s home page so graciously offered help, I nervously engaged, just like some of you probably have with your old boyfriend on FB messenger, against your better judgment. I needed to confirm the truth of these drawers’ existence! At first, the bot said they did not have the drawers. I sadly replied, “Ok, your website says you do, FYI.” And then…the bot asked me to hold…and eventually the bot came back & said, “My apologies. We do have both of those items. Unfortunately, we don’t deliver. Would you be able to come pick them up?” WOULD I? I would have loved to have seen that bot & an entire bot army try to stop me!

Am I making too much of this story about two overpriced plastic drawers? Am I trying to build it up too much? I’ll cut to the chase. We got the drawers. They were real. We realized there was no way in hell we were going to be able to get our appliances on top of them ourselves. We called the guys who originally delivered the washer/dryer a few years ago, & miraculously, they agreed, for a reasonable fee, to come de-install then re-install atop the pedestals our old laundry suite. Because they are pros who knew what they were doing, it took them all of twenty minutes to right the wrong decision we made in the first place.

The drawers? Nothing special. They’re plastic. Seem sturdy. We can keep our detergent & some other stuff in there so the laundry room looks much less chaotic & you can really focus on how ugly the floor is. They lock if you want to protect your Tide Pods from a home invasion or a teen who wants to eat one on a dare. Are they still doing that? The real beauty of the drawers is how they literally elevate the laundering experience so there are no more busted backs or floor lingerie. (Flingerie? It doesn’t look right, but it’s fun to say!)

I know all laundry situations & budgets are different. But if you are in any position to somehow lift your machines off the floor & you are wondering whether it would be worth it, IT IS SO WORTH IT IN MY HUMBLE ALL CAPS OPINION! I know whether that extra height was accomplished with our scrap wood idea that we ultimately scrapped or one of the inexpensive universal laundry pedestals they sell online or some IKEA hack someone has surely devised or even cinder blocks, I would be just as thrilled not to be hunching over my whites, mediums, darks & delicates. Because *I* am delicate.

Finally, if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, I really don’t love logos & labels everywhere. And the one I have recently hated the most was on the bottle of Tums I keep on my bedside table, because of how often I have to urgently battle acid reflux in the middle of the night.** Tums is a great brand! But it was starting to feel like it was *my* personal brand a bit. When Architectural Digest finally decides to do a profile on my home, will they highlight the vignette in my bedroom with a quote from me talking about how Tums have become something of a signature for me over the years? No. But, my precocious proton pumps aren’t about to quit, so the Tums need to stay at the ready.

My solution? A chic vintage candy dish! I have often jokingly referred to the various antacids I am frequently chewing as “adult candy” and…they are kind of colorful & cute? So, for fifteen bucks, I was able to make my nightstand look a little less like a Walgreen’s & it’s working for me! I might even get a complimentary smaller one for Advil!

Ok, those are my three small things that helped me get through last week. I want to hear what’s been helping you through last week or going into this new week?

*Re: Having very small Sunday Scaries this week, the joke was 100% on me! Because as I was writing up this post last night (which is when I originally intended to publish it) I got a call from Eli, who is across town house sitting, and from where I had JUST come after dropping some things off for him. He wanted to Facetime so I could give an opinion on a cut he had sustained when he dropped a jar while doing dishes. Reader, it wasn’t great. So, drove back across town while Lincoln got online & researched the nearest hospital with the best ER reviews, scooped up Eli, took him to the facility Lincoln recommended, dropped E at the door while I waited in the parking lot due to Covid precautions. About 4 hours & 5 stitches later, all is well. But by the time I got home it was already Monday & I thought if anyone would understand me being late for my own arbitrary self-imposed deadline, it would be my besties.

**Why do I need constant access to antacids? Partly because it’s a symptom of a condition I live with, partly because it’s exacerbated by a medication I take. And partly because I don’t want to not eat & drink stuff I enjoy even if it means I have to pay a little bit later. Don’t worry, me & my doc have talked about it a lot & I feel good about how we’re dealing with it, I promise. So, if this lady is in town & wants to go get nachos & margs, I’m not gonna say no! Because this visit was also one HUGE thing that helped me get through the week & is frankly too good to go on a list with laundry drawers & period cookies.