|
[The Sandoval Signpost (Web edition)
is pleased as punch (diet punch that is) to bring you the
humor and insightful human observations of Daniel Will Harris,
author of My
Wife and Times. —Ed].
It's curtains!
I've Seen The Light, And It's Not The Sun
By Daniel Will Harris
I now have conclusive proof that dolphins are smarter than
we are. The proof—they don't need curtains (or dishes
or cars or VCRs or porcelain figurines for that matter). Clearly
they must be smarter if they can live happy lives without
all the stuff we "need."
I've come to that conclusion today because I'm in the midst
of a "curtain trauma," as the evil decorating genius
that occasionally inhabits my wife is trying to find new living
room curtains to replace the ones she made 11 years ago.
I didn't think selecting some long pieces of fabric involved
months of drama and intrigue, but apparently I was wrong (again).
We are now on our third set of "window treatments"
and these, too, have failed to pass muster.
Now, you have to understand, these aren't ordinary drapes.
These are "environmental enhancements" that not
only must look good, but must also keep out the "damaging
rays of the sun." I didn't realize it, but, my wife has
implied in uncertain terms that everything we have in the
living room will dissolve into a pile of dust if the sun so
much as touches it.
Now—I understand that direct sunlight can destroy fabric
and carpet, yet somehow other people manage to make their
belongings last without having to live in total darkness.
Our unique solution has been for the design motif of said
living room to be "Hibernation Bear Cave Chic."
So even after 12 years, everything in the room would appear
like new, if you could only see it.
One of the supposed purposes of the new curtains was to "make
the room lighter." My wife always laughs at a TV decorator
named "Hildy" who has a trick of saying she's making
the room "lighter" while actually painting it black,
but her style of decorator rhetoric seems to be infectious.
We first bought light curtains, a beachy beige and black
canopy stripe that was the antithesis of bear cave. They looked
great in the catalog and arrived looking like used medical
gauze through which light streamed as if they were invisible.
Ms. Mole did not approve. Those were mailed back.
My wife then explained that when she said she wanted the
room to be "lighter" she was talking about the color
of the curtain fabric and she didn't mean she wanted actual
light entering the room. But of course.
Next we tried matchstick blinds—these would block direct
sun but let the view and some light in. I thought they were
great, but apparently too much deadly light was sneaking through
and we needed something more "dense" (other than
my head).
This lead to a loud public argument in a Home Depot where
my wife insisted on bamboo blinds that I felt would be perfect
for a trailer in Alabama but which didn't go with our living
room. My wife explained that this would lend an air of "the
English Bahamas" to our living room, even though the
rest of the room was totally devoid of anything English or
remotely Bahamian.
These blinds got home and once in the window were pronounced
"dreadful" by the very person who'd chosen them
(who shall remain nameless) so they went back.
I was starting to wonder it was a matter of taste. My wife
and I have always had almost uncannily similar taste in things,
so we don't have the problem that some couples do. There's
a TV program called "Designing for the Sexes" where
the man usually wants all chrome and glass while the wife
wants English Country chintz and the smart decorator gives
them something with no chrome but just a touch of glassy chintz
so that no one really got what they wanted but his soothing
tone made them believe they wanted beige art deco all along.
Yesterday new drapes (which were suddenly being referred
to as "panels"), started to arrive, via eBay. They
were beautiful Dupioni silk which you can buy at famous design
shops for the price of food for a month. On eBay they only
cost the price of food for a week. They were supposedly "taupe"
but I thought they were green. I was huffily informed that
they were "bronze," and went around thinking I had
suddenly become colorblind until a few days later when a certain
someone accidentally referred to them as "greenish."
They were quite beautiful in the package, and I even liked
them in the window. My wife, however, was concerned that they
let too much light in, and she didn't like the color or the
texture. Other than that my guess is that they were perfect.
Now she has to sell them on eBay from whence they came, so
if you're looking for luxurious greenish-bronze drapes that
let in enough light to actually see in your room, just search
for "Dupioni taupe silk" and you can enjoy them
too.
So it's back to the drawing board. I jokingly suggested gluing
aluminum foil on the windows and was shocked by her delighted
reaction. Perhaps I'll make lemonade by creating little pinpricks
in the foil so it looks like stars. I am joking, of course.
We'd never put foil in the windows. That would be too easy.
|
