* "Pawing" and Vanna White

Why, you ask, would I vault out of the bed at 5:15 AM" the day before" the day before school starts? What on earth could be so important that I would find myself in the JC Penney's parking lot at 7:10 AM on my "last" Saturday morning? It's a long story but one worth repeating.


Does your life every spiral completely out of control? Do you suffer from "the snowball effect"? I once knew a woman who politely asked her teen daughter not to dip the gravy all the way across the table to her plate, but to move the gravy boat closer to her plate and dip. Well, one or two teenagery smart remarks later the daughter was grounded for six weeks and the whole dinner was ruined! That's the way it always begins...one little incident and then like a magnet something else sticks and suddenly you've got the War of the Roses on your hands.


It all began with a wand, not the magic kind but one on my mini blind in the kitchen.
Several months ago, the wand on the "one inch out of date" mini blinds broke. We have four windows over the sink, and it has always been my great pleasure to get up early, fix some coffee and open my blinds over the sink and look out over the pasture at the big oak tree. (Of course, you remember the oak tree was split in two by lightning, so now I just look out over the dead split fallen oak tree.) But the wand on the #3 window, my favorite, was the one that broke.

My husband, ever the cheerful penny pincher, said, " Oh, that's not so bad, just adjust the blind with your hand. It opens right up." It sort of looks like you are "pawing" the blinds, coaxing them to open, one by one. Every day now you can tell who has pawed open the blind. If light comes in from the top all the way down, it's him. If only a few blinds are open, it's me. It's harder to "paw" very high when you are 5'1".

What is opened must also be closed. The "closing of the blinds" is a wrist action much like Vanna White does on the game show. The problem is compounded if Husband has "pawed" the blinds open because then the top blinds are too tall for me to close. So this necessitates opening the pantry, retrieving the yardstick and closing the blinds. This entire scenario has become very annoying.

Friday afternoon the unthinkable happened. Another wand broke! This time it was window #2.(Levolor must have had an exact 17 year long warranty on these things.) So into the car we go to check out new blinds at JC Penney. Husband was tired (two a day football practice and all. It was 5:00 on Friday afternoon, lots of traffic, big purchase looming on the horizon), so things were pretty tense on the ride to Penney's to "just look" at the sale blinds.

Because of the great sale, I could get rid of those 1" minis and get my much desired 2" blinds! To make a long story shorter, we ordered 4 new sets of 2" blinds and I was deliriously happy. Approaching the car, my stomach suddenly lurched. For a moment I thought it was the afterglow of the day old pizza I had for lunch, but then it hit...I couldn't get those 2 inchers, they were right next to the dining room which had 1 inchers. I watch enough HGTV to know that's not happening. I quickly counted, if we did the dining room, the living room was next to it and the 4 windows in the front of the guest room, then we might as well finish out the rest and before I knew it, I had counted 15 windows would need blinds! BTW: we had to get custom made ones, because our windows were 1" narrower than the ready mades.

We dashed to Lowe's to comparison shop. (Tension rising.) Couldn't get the right width or length. We could, however, buy new wands for only $2.97 each. We bought 4. "Let's try them out when we get to the car." We had brought a "good" blind to measure with. In wresting the wand onto the wand holder thing, somehow, it broke, too. If you are counting, we now have 3 broken wands out of a possible 4.

I called my blind man at Penney's. I mean the nice, patient guy who works the drapery department. He is not blind. I needed to change the order to 1 inchers. What color? "Well, you just be the judge." To spare you the details, after 3 phone calls from my new BFF, the last one at 9:00 PM, we decided it would be best for me to come back to the store and pick out the best color of white blind. That's how I ended up there at 7:15 on Saturday morning. He had appointments the rest of the day...I bet he did..anything to get rid of me.

Filling out the paperwork for blinds is a lot like applying for a job at the Pentagon. EXACT measurements (now we are having custom blinds made), side of wand tilt, drawstring? or ring? or the new ringless? aluminum or vinyl? which white? dover, snow, coconut, dover metallic, snowball, yada, yada, yada! Room where they will be used? Initial here in three places, read the contract, and sign your full name. Is this real? All this to order an "out dated" decorating accessory for your home? I dutifully did everything BFF said to do and the deed was done. What if they don't fit? Well, remember the contract?...it's tough if they don't fit.

I paid, picked out some new sheets in the linen department and for the first time in my life I have 300 count sheets! Wow, and what are these over here? 500 or 800 count sheets! What? 800 threads per inch? What has this country come to? Do we have to pretend we are in the Trump Towers every night when we go to bed? The 300 count "on sale" ones would have to do.

One inchers will be in August 30. (Custom, remember?) BFF will track them for me. Until then, it's "paw" away in the AM and Vanna away at night! If you ride by my house and wonder what's wrong with the blinds...I had to "paw" open this morning.

Lessons to be Learned:

1. HGTV has got to be in "cahoots" with the building and decorating industry. Don't watch any of the programs.

2. If you are 5'1" or under and the wand on your mini blind breaks, go IMMEDIATELY to Penney's and ask for BFF. No comparison shopping, nothing. JUST GO.

3. It is a communist plot to make the American public think that they are so "entitled" that they must have 800 thread count sheets. Remember the pioneers? I think they probably slept on burlap or worse. 300 is as far as my family is going. Somebody must take a stand!