Make Mine Mike

Still preparing to move, I’ve continued to declutterize my place, finding old family photos that take me back. Like to the days when I used to move all the time -- usually from one place in Manhattan to another, and back to Long Island.

My parents were always happy to have me home, mostly so they could have me do chores around the house. Or on top of the house. At least up there no one would see me in my schlumpy work clothes -- that goofy t-shirt and shorts -- or catch me sleeping on the job.

But sprucing up the ol’ homestead was a fair tradeoff, ‘cause I got my father to help me with nearly every move. Dad was always in and out of the city, so I’d load up my stuff in his car and save myself from hiring some guys, paying moving fees, and suffering any aggravation. Well, two out three ain’t bad...

“Mikey, what’s this?” Dad said. “We can’t tie your mattress to the roof of the car using this. I told you to get twine.”

“It is twine.”

“No, it’s string. I said twine.”

“I know you said twine,” I said, “but maybe you meant rope.”

“I meant twine.”

“And I did get twine. That’s twine.”

“This is not twine! This is string. Twine is what we need. Twine!”

“Dad, you told me to get twine. I asked the guy for twine. This says twine on it. See? Twine! I did exactly what you said when you said to get twine and got twine. Maybe this looks like string to you but it’s called twine. And maybe what you think is called twine would really be rope--”

“Twine! I know what twine is! And this is not twine!”

We wound up saying the word “twine” another hundred and twenty-twine times before it got too late to go back to the store. So, like the two schmucks that we were, we tied the mattress to the roof of the car, figuring that doubling and tripling up the twine would hold the mattress fine.

And it did, the whole way through rush hour traffic out of the city. But as you can guess, when we finally picked up speed, the mattress caught the wind underneath it like the wing of an airplane, burst its triple-twine constraints and flew away somewhere on the Long Island Expressway. We were heading east and the mattress was west, and never the twine shall meet.

My father and I argued the rest of the way home about whose fault this was, repeating the word “twine” over and over until it lost all meaning and we just started cracking up. I’m glad Dad had a sense of humor about it, but since I still had no mattress, he made me sleep outside on the chaise lounge all summer.

Anyway, hope you liked that story. I’m gonna be on hiatus here for a while. I’ll be back, just taking a blog break. I’ll miss y’all. Twine knot to miss me too much.