July 30, 2009

• The Wicker Picker Upper

  Last Saturday I felt lazy, so  I wandered across the street to have coffee with the neighbors who were in the midst of a garage sale.  They had it all:  baby stuff, quilts, old shoes, lamps without shades, more baby stuff,  and a whole lotta wicker goin' on. 

   

  Personally, I never understood America's fascination with wicker;  it's too darn stiff and I never got used to that godawful crunch sound every time I sit in a wicker chair (furniture shouldn't be "extra crispy").  Other people like wicker, however.  In fact, the neighbor-lady up the road LOVES wicker.  When she pulled up to the driveway in her SUV, I saw her eyes lit up.  She was gazing upon the wicker that dreams are made of:  A giant "Morticia Addams" chair and a bench to go along with it.  The price?  Twenty bucks, but since she was a neighbor an' all, she got the whole kit-and-kaboodle for two.

   

  Then came the dilemma.

   

  She couldn't fit her newly-purchased wicker in her SUV.  That's when Good Samaritan Me stepped up.   Feeling right neighborly, I announced, "No problem!  Let me carry them over to your house for you."   The neighbor-lady smiled, "You will?  That's great!  And listen, you don't even have to come up the road.  Bring it through the woods.  Just cut through that yard and find the path and then go across the field and you'll find my backyard."  Then she peeled out, leaving me in a cloud of SUV dust.

   

  So there I was, grappling with two giant pieces of wicker with loose wicker-sticks jutting out at dangerous angles, finding their way into my sensitive body parts.  As I cut through someone's yard I couldn't help but notice the big chain link fence with the words BEWARE OF DOG prominently displayed.  Deciding not to test the validity of the sign, I took an even firmer grip of the wicker and moved even faster. 

   

  Navigating this unwieldy crap through the dense forest, I began to feel a bit like an Appalachian (if Appalachians had wicker).  Branches were smacking me in the face, almost knocking my glasses off.  Briars and potential poison-ivy abounded.  There were random pieces of wood lying around, full of nails and tetanus.  I narrowly missed a few sinkholes.  I wondered if I would arrive alive.  

   

  Finally, there was a clearing.  It was the neighbor-lady's house.  I made it, and with only a few cuts and a pair of muddy sneakers.  

   

  The neighbor-lady happily snatched the wicker from my hands and rewarded me for my efforts by giving me a large unmarked bag of tortilla chips (which is why the wicker couldn't fit in the SUV in the first place; there were four giant crates of unmarked tortilla chips in the back).  In the olden days I would have been given a plucked chicken or a freshly baked pie, but these are different times, my friend.  All I got was a large unmarked bag of tortilla chips. 

   

  Anybody got salsa?

                                                                                                ---- Ed Kaz

  • 4:58 pm
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