Memoirist Idol
Shower Rod
A memory in one sentence
When you decide to move your curved shower rod at your lake place because the contractor who put it there was trying to be a good guy, and threw in the job as a favor when he worked on the water leak, because the two of you had good rapport and even played a round of Golf (the card game), since he saw the rules and the deck of cards on your table when he came for the estimate, was at the end of his day, and had time, so he challenged you to a game which he won, then came back a month later for the work, but you weren’t there, so you couldn’t supervise, and he put the rod too far outside the bath tub, and now you have to move it because the shower curtain hasn’t closed snugly for a year, and you constantly get overspray, and the carpet has a fine line of mold from the run-off, and when you try to slide the rod inside the stall, you realize you’re not going to be able to just noodge it, the way you do with the straight kind, because it’s attached somehow, so you have to go online to see how those curved shower rods go together, and you try to work backwards from what Nelson, the guy in the video, did to install his, and when you pry the cover plates off, you discover the brackets are screwed on, and the screws have hex heads and star heads, so you spend twenty minutes digging for your allen wrenches and star bits, and when you finally find the right ones, and get everything unscrewed, the brackets still won’t budge because they’re stuck to the wall somehow, which is when you discover there’s construction adhesive on the back, so you wedge a screwdriver blade underneath, and the plate gives, but your wall starts coming off along with it, though you’re able to limit the amount of sheet rock you shred to three inches, and you just know, when he put it up, he stood back, looked at his work proudly, and said, “That’s never coming down,” — and it’s true, a family of five could use it for chin-ups at the same time, and now your floor is littered with project pieces you tried to keep in order, but you discover you have enough parts to repair a go-cart, and you hope they all go back together, knowing you won’t have it up anytime soon, and probably won’t even get your shower for the day, so you spackle the wall, and decide to take a walk while it dries, in order get away from the sorry state of affairs and grouse to yourself about people who do too good a job, and once outside, you look up to see the sky is deep and blue and there’s enough breeze to make the lake sparkle like crazy, and when you get back, there’s quiche for lunch.
I recommend Jean Bay Wiley’s How Did She Do it All? Valuable survival lessons from my Grandmother, a look at how one strong woman carved a life for herself and her family amongst the hardscrabble circumstances of arduous work, two wars, and the loss of loved ones. This parallels the story of many women at the time, including my own beloved grandmother’s.
Kris Heim is a baby-boomer with a past: teacher, gardener, crafter, writer, traveler. She recently downsized by half and is trying to organize that kettle of fish.
