Sans Fig Leaf

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Out There!

"It doesn't take much"

31 May, 2001

We wound up with a home-improvement project for the holiday weekend. We hadn't planned it, but it wasn't the result of a disaster, either.

Several weeks back, Michael was helping our landlady with a computer problem. While he was merrily fixing the equipment, I and the landlady got to discussing some of the cool and interesting things about the building (which was built in the late fifties, has had several owners, and undergone a few alterations). Forgetting that I was chatting with the landlady, I lamented the fact that our bathroom doesn't have a medicine cabinet.

"It doesn't?" She asked, in surprise (she has only owned the building for about 14 months, whereas I've lived in it for over five years).

"No. There's just a mirror screwed to the wall over the sink."

"Oh, that's terrible!" She said. "Come look at what I put in my main bathroom and tell me if you like it."

One thing led to another, and we had agreed to install a new medicine cabinet ourselves which she would buy for us. I was supposed to measure the space for the cabinet, which I did, but I kept forgetting to tell her the information until this last week. Saturday our doorbell rang. She'd pulled her car up close to the porch and had the new cabinet in the trunk. "It's kind of heavy, wanna help me carry it in?"

Michael, who's still working swing shift, was asleep, so I set about removing the mirror, finding a wall stud, planning where I would install the anchor screws, and so forth.  I had everything almost ready to go when it was time for Michael to wake up.

You've probably heard the carpenter's mantra, "Measure twice, cut once." Well, measuring twice never quite works for me. It usually turns into, "Measure fourteen times, cut three." The actual installation took a few more steps than it should, but eventually we got it installed.

It's 30 inches wide with three mirrored doors. There are three shelves, which he can adjust to different heights. I spent a few minutes that evening gathering things from the drawers and the hall closet that I would rather have in the cabinet. since I had to clean off the counter to install the thing, I took the opportunity to bleach the counter top and go through all the little things cluttering up around the sink.

The next day I spent considerably more time going through things in the bathroom cabinet and drawers. I threw some things away, other things went into the cabinet. I was more than a little surprised by some of the odd things I found squirreled away in the back of some of the drawers. It's amazing that you can forget you have some things. Of course, many of these items were things Ray picked up, so I never knew we had them.

The cabinet also solves the old problem that comes up frequently when we have company. Someone will ask for some aspirin or something for a headache. They'll usually ask after they've gone into the bathroom. Trying to get people to look in the closet at the shelf at eye-level just never works, so one of us winds up running upstairs to get it for them. I don't mind getting it for them, but sometimes you'd rather keep doing what you're doing and just call out, "It's in the medicine cabint, right side, bottom shelf!"

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. Getting things cleaned and tidied always makes me feel good. Having a new and better place to keep all those little things (aspirin, toothpaste, razors, bandaids, et al) is even better.

I'm so easily amused, it's almost comical. It's the simple things in life that can be the most satisfying.