Who In Their Right Mind Would Throw Away An Empty Box Of Staples??!!!!!
Last edited Thu Jul 18, 2013, 09:54 PM - Edit history (1)
My house is full of mementos of the dead.
It's true. I had to admit that yesterday when my partner tried to throw away the empty box of staples. I've been making a catio for our deaf cat and have been using the big hand stapler that I have. After almost 20 years I'd finally used up the box of staples and my dear hubby thought throwing away the box was OK.
It was not.
You see, that was my dad's stapler. One of the tools in the box of dad's tools my mom thrust at me when she had to sell the family farm and move out in just a few weeks. Down at the bottom of the box was his shiny chrome stapler and a box of arrow staples. My dad bought those staples. He used up half the box. He went to the store and bought that box on some morning after he had his coffee and fed some cows.
The rag I just cleaned up the sink with was, in 1990, my dear friend David's beach towel. I have pictures of him sitting on it, poolside, in Palm Springs. Then AIDS took him and I was left with a house full of good quality housewares from David. So his beach towel was my beach towel til it got a hole. Then it was a dog towel until it sort of ripped in half...so my mom used her surger and surged me up a bunch of kitchen rags out of it. And so now when I do things like scrub my sink, I think of my dear friend David. He was handsome and suave and drove a convertible and now he is reduced to scrubbing sinks, but, what the hell. It makes me think of him and, it honestly hurts when another of those rags is reduced to strings and fray and must be thrown away. I'm down to two of them...from beach towel to two little 8" squares of material.
So, my poor husband fears throwing anything away, and I freak out over things like rags and stapler boxes. At least I'm practical about what I keep!
But these thoughts are in my head right now because we are about to go on vacation and my partner is, as usual, freaking out about our domestic partnership papers. His family populates the South, so our last trip to Florida was kind of scary. Knowing he could be barred from my hospital room makes him lose sleep at night. A few months after Florida I had a heart attack so this is our first trip since that rather unpleasant event. But this year his family is in a bluer state that recognizes Domestic Partnerships.
And the difference in how we feel is amazing. I think of my mother, sleeping for weeks at the hospital with my dad when he became ill in the 1970s. And then I think of my gay friends dying of AIDS whose partners were thrown out of their hospital rooms because they weren't "family". Those things still happen in red states. Those things are terrifying when you are a gay guy with heart issues.
Those things can really wreck how you feel going into a Florida vacation or a Texas getaway. They are a black cloud. You have to make a choice before you get on the plane, "I am accepting, if something terrible happens to me, I may have to die alone while my husband waits down the hall". Or, the flipside of that is thinking: "If something happens to my hubby they had better be prepared to shoot me to get him away from the side of that bed." Yes, part of visiting Florida last year was thinking, "I'll go to jail here if my partner is in the hospital...because I already know I won't leave his room on my own accord."
But this year it is a blue state reunion. We aren't snippy getting ready, he isn't fuming about the Domestic Partnership rules (I don't get mad but he isn't as mellow about such things as I am). Basically, this whole trip just feels better.
I don't have to fear my fellow Americans.
We just get to be.
Thank you DU for all the support you have given to gay marriage and domestic partnerships. This is how the issue plays out in one DUer's life. Peace out all. :0)
(and, P.S. .... see, the new staples go into my dad's old box and you recycle the new box. :0) My poor hubby, he is a Saint).
And please feel free to tell us about one of your mementos. :0) I personally would love to hear about them.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Thank You.
And that day we'll all feel much better.
Have a good trip, and hug that hubby. He sounds like a keeper.
A patch of cloth and a picture of the person and a brief description in the same frame.
Here's an example:
l'd forgotten I'd wrapped it in a rag so I missed it when I was hunting.
I was pretty upset at the idea of having to get a new one. My dad's is this old chrome one from...gosh, the early 60s, I'd guess. Maybe even the 50's. It is a great design, whatever it is.
Oh, duh, its the internet machine....
two seconds on google and...
Sorry, Don. I couldnt help myself.
Beautiful post as usual. I just love it. Youre a good soul for certain. Enjoy your vacation! 
Our daughter was visiting a few years ago.
She was in her mid 30s.
Not 5 or 6, her mid 30s.
Sitting at the kitchen counter and chatting, she began to toy with the red wax covering from a ball of Gouda we had eaten.
She rolled it into little balls and made a kind of red wax snowman.
And sat it aside.
Later I saw it sitting on the counter backsplash.
A week after she left I was going to toss it.
"NO!" said Miz t. "Our sweet daughter made that. You can't throw it away!"
They might look good at Christmas time. Make them a little diorama to live in!
Just cannot throw it away. She starved herself because an unobtainable image was forced on her when she was young.
and I can either find the staples or the stapler, thanks to my daughter always "borrowing" them. I have bought too many staples, and too many staplers, too many times. 
I am so glad your vacation will be relaxing! Thank you for sharing, brought a couple tears...
