Old rugs bring new joys ~ March 17, 2004

David Heiller

“I’m missing the rugs.”

Cindy has been saying that for the past several weeks. I’ll bring a cart load of boxes in from the garage, and we’ll unload them and find a place for the Tupperware and shoes and books. Then pretty soon Cindy will say, “I’m missing the rugs.”

Α few more cartloads of boxes will come in, and we’ll unload them and find a place for the pots and pans and pictures. Then pretty soon Cindy will say, “Ι’m missing the rugs.”

I thought I knew where the rugs were when we first started loading the garage up with boxes last summer. I thought I knew where everything was.

One of the old rugs, when it was a new rug.

Cindy scoffed at that. “We’ll never be able to find anything after we move,” she said, and as usual, she was right. Because somewhere in the sheer volume and chaos of moving 24 years of married possessions, and a few fond bachelor items too, I lost my grip on what was where.

That bothered me, because I’ve always liked to know where things go. “A place for everything and everything in its place” is one of my favorite idiotic phrases.

So finding those rugs became something of an adventure for me. The boxes in the garage dwindled, which was a very fine feeling. And no rugs and no boxes marked RUGS. Just some Christmas decorations remained by last Saturday, and a few boxes of keepsakes and knickknacks.

Maybe Cindy was wrong, I thought. Maybe those rugs already came in and she missed them. What rugs is she talking about anyway? Maybe they never existed!

Luckily, I didn’t voice those thoughts. I’ve learned a few things in those 24 years.

As I was walking down the steps of the garage loft on Saturday, I looked into a big box that I had set aside in the area where I put empty boxes. It was empty right?

No. It was filled with rugs.

Then it came back to me. Oh yeah, THOSE rugs. Why didn’t you say so? I guess I shoved them over there one day last summer, when I was looking for something else, which I never found anyway, because you can’t find things in a garage full of boxes, like I told Cindy last summer.

So on Saturday morning, I carried the big box into the house and said, with a hint of surprise in my voice, “Here’s a box of rugs.”

“I knew I was missing some rugs!” Cindy exclaimed.

“Oh yeah?” Ι asked, as if I knew where they were all along, and all she had to do was ask, and good old Dave would deliver.

Yes indeed, it is a time of discovery at the new Heiller house. A windswept and joyous time that can only come from a new house with old rugs.