A bolt

I found a bolt.

Controlling the comfort of my house in every detail has become important to me. It wasn't always so important. Before that trait had a chance to develop I learned the importance of compromising. I got married. In the course of maintaining a superficially happy life, I sought satisfying decisions of taste in that gap between myself and my former wife. Marrying so young subsumed some of the natural desires for the state of my surroundings. I have tended to be a submissive person in general, not only in my marriage. On occasion, I have even had to submit to my mother's tastes and her interest in my welfare.

Once, when hearing me talk about cutting grass, my mother decided that I needed some manner of tending to the edges along the sidewalks. She bought me a WeedEater - an electric one, and an extra long heavy extension cord to go with it. This extension cord was the kind designed to be used over long areas. I think it's 50 feet long, maybe longer. It's also bright orange, which underlines the idea that it would be used in an area where it needs to be noticed and for a purpose that not noticing it could cause some manner of harm. I picture someone using a nail gun on a rooftop construction job needing this extension cord, so that a passerby wouldn't trip on it and rip the nail gun from his hand while it was in active mode. The color would tend to prevent anyone not noticing it, for sure.

I still have the extension cord. In fact, I needed it just today, not for the WeedEater, though. My grass is cut by a service that works for the apartment complex. I needed it for the portable portion of my vacuum cleaner, so that I could vacuum the carpet floorboards of my car. It's more convenient than paying for it at the car wash. I did it in the comfort of my own covered parking spot. I wanted to vacuum the car suddenly because I had been noticing the spot where Nathan allowed bubble gum to stick in the carpet. I had treated that spot with baking soda to dry it up, but I wanted to work on it a bit. I knew vacuuming it wouldn't clean it up, so I took my spray bottle in which I dilute ammonia with water, as my personal all-purpose cleaner. It took several iterations of spraying the 20% ammonia and scrubbing with a heavy-bristle brush, but the gummy spot gradually disappeared to unnoticeable proportions, but not altogether. It was enough. I vacuumed the bits of leaves and various bits of paper that had accumulated in those back floorboards during all my travels with my kids. Now, the back seat of the car is ready.

I wanted to clean the car tonight in particular because I may have a couple of people riding in my car this weekend. My father and stepmother will be here, and I think my father would like to get a look at the Army post where he did basic training back in the late 60s. The post has changed a lot but he may see something that stirs memories. It's not a bad thing. Of course, if I drive, he'll ride in the passenger seat and my stepmother will ride in the back. I want it to be clean, so tonight was my opportunity to clean up the gum. Good thing I had that bright long extension cord and that vacuum cleaner.

I bought that vacuum cleaner while still married, but I was told that I had spent too much. I went 30 dollars over budget to get a nicer one. It's a bagless vacuum, which eliminates the big annoyance with the vacuum we had owned prior, for which we found it increasingly hard and recently impossible to find replacement bags. It also has the detachable portion for such purposes as taking to the car, assuming one has a long enough extension cord. And I did. But still, I remember buying the vacuum that I felt right about, regardless that I wasn't compromising, and that no one else compromised either.

I own a dining table that I like well enough. It's good solid wood, with a decorative veneer on it. There are still some spots where the kids, in their younger days, have left a film of food and oil, and the occasional crayon mark. It seems impossible to clean up, but I still like that it is so solid. Among the things that my ex-wife left behind when she took all the things she wanted from the storage unit while I was in Iraq, this table is something that she didn't want.

It came with six chairs - with an off-white upholstery that she had always said she'd recover. She chose a fabric and it sat there undone while the off-white fabric collected major stains from spilled chocolate ice cream and fruit punch Kool-Aid. After a few months, during one of her trips back to her parents, I took the fabric and re-covered the chairs. It took me two nights to do all six chairs, coming home after work and cutting fabric. She chose a durable, neutral fabric and the stains left by the children didn't stand out the way they had on the paler color. Still, the stains accumulated and were left uncleaned.

When I pulled those chairs out of storage three years ago, I knew I wanted them to be redone another time. I found a very cheap denim, which added a bit of color to the chairs, complementing the honey finish with a blue-jean blue, and you know blue jeans go with anything. I took longer with this job, as I removed  both previous layers of fabric and cleaned up the chairs as I went, taking care with all the spots that were unreachable while the upholstered seats were on them. I tightened up the chairs too, once I noticed the bolts in each corner were loose. I replaced a couple of the screws holding the seats on as well. The chairs look great and still sit very well. I'm glad to have that table and chairs.

I didn't set up the table when I set up my apartment in Texas. I didn't have room. I used the chairs, but that was it. I had plenty of room when I got to Virginia, nearly two years later. By that time, the table had been in and out of storage for over three years. When it came time to put the two big legs back under it, I found that of the six bolts holding on each leg (three on each side of the leg), one of the bolts was missing. It felt lacking, and I'm sure I could have found a matching bolt at a big unnamed hardware store that starts with an 'L' but I never looked. I barely used the table while I was in that apartment. I remember using it when I entertained a wonderful lady with whom I'm quite in love. I also used it to solve a jigsaw puzzle and later to plaster the puzzle-saver on it, thinking it would make a nice addition to the boys' room someday. It hangs on their wall now, and they have made nice comments on it.

When I moved into this apartment, I warned the movers that there was a bolt missing, to let them know they hadn't lost it. It's a minor thing, and not something that would affect the legs staying on. Probably each leg would stay on with only three legs, but it's more secure to have all six. I thought again I should look for a matching bolt, but it wasn't a priority. the bolts are only seen under the table, and only I and the movers would know.

However, I found the bolt.

It was wrapped in the extension cord, which had been sitting in the bottom of a big plastic trash can that has only been used to collect unused tools for the past three years. I had to remove a tire pump, two saws, hedge clippers and pruners and the big wide head of a shop brush which hasn't been connected to its matching pole in that same three-year time period. I still have all these little things. When I got to the bottom of the trash can, where the extension cord made itself so obvious by being such a bright shade of orange even after - what has it been? - 16 years or only 15? - I pulled the cord out and threw it on the patio floor so that I could restuff the trash can in a different way, with a Samsonite car topper (which has its own story) and the same saws and clippers and pruners. I heard a jingle. It sounded odd for the little metal ends of an electric plug to sing like that on the concrete, but I ignored it.

When I picked up the cord to use it, I heard it again, and there, still wearing the washer it was born to wear, was the bolt. Its little song hung in the air, as if it had been sleeping, waiting for this moment when it was revealed again, and its long adventure could be over. Just for a moment I doubted that this prodigal could truly be the bolt lost such a long time ago, but I knew it must be, and when I twisted it gently into its spot on the underside of the table, it seemed happy.

Everyone was home again.