It Hinges on Decency

It started with a hinge that broke on a cabinet door. I contacted Home Depot, who gave me the number of the company that made them (called R.S.I.),  and ordered new hinges. They came almost immediately in a little envelope, free of charge. I took them out…and they were the wrong ones. That’s when I realized with horror that my cabinets had come from a different store. Different cabinet company entirely.

How embarrassing.

 I hate dishonesty. If the lack of empathy is the devil—and I believe it is—then dishonesty is the car (s)he rode in on. I’ve known some of the most honest people in the world as well as some of the most dishonest. I’ve always admired the former tremendously. The latter inspire nothing but pity and contempt.

So I mailed the hinges back with postage. I included a note explaining what had happened and apologized. If it had been their mistake, I would have expected them to make it right. But this was mine, so I tried.

A few days later, along came my check for postage. It included a little note thanking me and explaining that they try to help when they can. The note even had a smiley face on it. That note really made me feel good. I smiled all day…about that smiley face.

Two days later, along came a package in the mail, express delivery, from R.S.I. It was a bigger envelope…filled with hinges. No kidding—there was every possible kind of hinge that my door could need. And it did, in fact, contain the very hinges that worked for my cabinet door. Even though I didn’t purchase the doors through their company.

I’m still smiling. I may not have purchased my cabinets from RSI, but I sure would next time. Who wouldn’t want to buy from such a pleasant and helpful place? I would show you the note, which made me feel so good that I saved it, but it fell off my bulletin board and landed behind the filing cabinet. Which is okay. I imagine someday I’ll move that filing cabinet and find it. And then I’ll smile all over again.

From the rocking horse to the rocking chair, friendship keeps teaching us about being human. ~Letty Cottin Pogrebin (whose name alone should be a quote.)

Book Blurb Friday #24

Have you ever had a week that simultaneously dragged and flew? That describes my week and my body, come to think of it. I’ve felt like a really fast zombie. School started like gangbusters, and no one seemed prepared…including my immune system.  I promptly caught a cold. Plus months ago my daughter and I decided her graduation party would be more of a bon voyage party right before she and her friends set sail on the winds of their various futures. Which turned out to be this weekend.

So…am sorry I’m so behind on your blogs this week, but I hope to get caught up now that I’m almost over the hump. Till then, thank heavens for caffeine and Book Blurb Friday, a meme in which our delightful host, Lisa Ricard Claro of Writing in the Buff, posts a picture of a pretend book cover. The challenge is to write an accompanying blurb of 150 words or fewer to sell the book. Mine is a petite 80 words. 

~Embracing Nice~

Carolyn Sweeting was nice. And nice, of course, is practically synonymous with nerdy. Nice is the oatmeal, the mouse brown, the canvas tennis shoes of virtues.

But Carolyn’s not-so-nice husband gave her the only real gift of their lives together: the realization of what it was she valued most in this world. So when the children moved out, she divorced him and left behind her former soccer mom life in order to move to…where else? Nice. Nice, France.

It was only when Carolyn embraced nice that she found sometimes…nice can be a lot more exciting than anyone ever seems to think possible.

“Just like your mother, you’re unfailingly kind—a trait people never fail to undervalue, I’m afraid.” ~Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Improper Poll: Haggaday

They say it as I’m leaving Costco: “Haggaday!” Bank tellers say it, too. “Haggaday!” I just heard it again as I was leaving the grocery store: “Haggaday!”

I’m not making fun of them; the words are bound to slur together when people utter the same sentence hundreds of times a day. The thing that makes me giggle is the logo that always pops into my head:

Do you ever hear a silly pronunciation?

Improper Poll: When Memory Serves

Along the lines of “when I am old, I shall wear purple,” I’ve decided that I shall buy mismatched plates to use according to my mood. And in an uncharacteristic stroke of luck, I recently ran across a china pattern that my late grandmother had. On sale.  I took it as a sign.

I bought two place settings. Every time I see them, I get a little giggly thrill because I’m instantly transported to my grandmother’s house. The emptier those plates are, the fuller I feel.

Her birthday would have been this week. Or would you say, “is” this week, since the day still exists even though she doesn’t? Go figure—that wasn’t even my question, though I would love to hear how you’d phrase that.  Also, for me the photo is creating the optical illusion that the center part protrudes rather than recedes.  Is it just me?

Anyhoo.  My question is: Do you have something that reminds you of a loved one and just makes you feel good inside?

The Horror of Haunted Appliances

My TV set is haunted. It’s not that I’m not used to haunted machinery; it’s just that some hauntings are more annoying than others.

In high school, for example, I had an old fashioned, windable alarm clock that used to jump off the night stand. For the longest time I thought I was knocking it off in my sleep because I’d find it on the floor every morning. Until one time I woke up in the middle of the night and watched it jump. I guess a spring was going haywire in there or something, but it was a creepy thing to watch. Like it was committing a nocturnal suicide of sorts.

Now I have haunted stuff that I find sort of endearing, like my printer that clicks and hums at odd times, as if it gets bored with sitting quietly for too long and needs to remind me that it’s there and waiting.

But the haunted TV is too much. It’s not just that it turns itself off on its own. It’s the timing. It has a talent for sensing the absolute climax of a story.

Like on those home shows, just as the people open their eyes to look at their newly remodelled room, and they let out a gasp and the camera just starts to pan so we can finally see the “after” look, and— *PLINK*

So I fumble madly for the remote. If you press buttons enough, sometimes it comes back on. But by the time I get it back on again, all that’s left is a commercial.

Or on mysteries: “Holmes, I must tell you that I believe the killer to be….” *PLINK*

“….Honey, I never told you this, but your REAL father is….” *PLINK*

“….And this season’s winner IS….” *PLINK*

Then the other day, just as the Cute Guy was beginning to emerge from the bathroom clad only in a towel…you guessed it. *PLINK* Like automatic censorship. Or torture.

That does it. I’m all for an appliance with a sense of humor, but that was just mean. No wonder my TV was so cheap. I thought I was getting plasma. Instead I got…ectoplasma!

Overheard at a funeral: “If she could see how badly they did her makeup, she would die all over again.”