dianaschnuth

We’ve had this same kitchen trash can for years, but today is the first time that my regular repositioning bubbled up a memory of a similar situation from decades ago.

My Mom met Tom at church when I was about eleven years old. At the time, Mom was in her thirties and single; she and I lived with my Memaw, my Aunt Sammie, and my cousin Michael in a two-bedroom apartment.

Once Mom and Tom started dating, he invited us over to his place for dinner. The house he was renting was a half-hour’s drive from our apartment, and a full hour from where he worked at the time. Looking back now, it’s baffling to me how he came to rent a house in this one-horse town so far away from everything, when there had to be other housing options.

It was a cute little house — or it would have been, if he hadn’t put such a middle-aged bachelor pad spin on it. The focal point of the living room was the massive DIY entertainment center… and the recliner placed in the middle of the room, squarely in front of the television. All the shades were drawn, making the living room feel very much like a man-cave.

The piece de resistance was the wooden board Tom had nailed to the floor behind his chair, to keep it from sliding backward when he would flop down to watch TV.

This morning, almost 40 years later, it occurred to me that I could wedge something behind the kitchen trash can to space it far enough away from the wall to always open properly with the foot pedal… just like Tom’s two-by-four.