In my last post, I mentioned the English writer Mary Ann Norton’s “Borrowers” books, which my sisters and I treated as enjoyable kids’ books. It was a long time before it occurred to me that possibly she made up a story around actual events.
I have had a quite a few experiences in this house, more than I would want to chronicle. But here is one from this past spring.
I had been mending some item of clothing in the living room, sitting in the armchair that has a good, powerful lamp beside it. I had left the thread, pin cushion, and small scissors there on the adjacent TV table.
A couple of weeks later, I had needed to fix something else. I went back, and everything was there —except the pincushion. Looked behind the chair, behind the TV stand, under the nearby bookcases, etc.
No luck. Cleaned and vacuumed the living room. Nope.
The usual suspect is brown and has four paws, and he has a soft mouth when he wants, but with all those needles and pin sticking out? Biting down would be . . . regrettable.
So I went to Joann’s, the fabric and hobby supplies chain, and bought a pin cushion, pins, and thread for a particular job. Good timing, because then I learned that that chain is shutting down.
A month later, M. is walking from the study into the bedroom. There is a tall bookcase there with all my religious studies books. It’s a brick-and-board bookcase (we still decorate in American Grad Student), with the shelves held up by bricks standing on end.
Slightly above her eye level, between two of the bricks at the end of the shelf, she saw something. Yep, the pin cushion. Still with floor dust on it, as shown in the photo above. It had moved from the other end of the house. And the dog, even if he had picked it up, would not have placed it five and a half feet above the floor.
They “borrowed” it.
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