Un-Canned

We have a huge wooden horse in our house.  Not quite life-size.  Small pony size, really. 

It is made of teak, carved in Thailand.  It stands with a rope around its neck that is bolted to the wall because if it needs not to fall on anyone. 

The tail comes out--its big, black, wooden tail.  I had it resting up high, out of reach, because the kids kept knocking it out of the horse.  The tip is already chipped off. . .

But then the kids started to keep things in the hole that holds the tail.  It's not an anatomically reminiscent hole or anything.  But it is a hole.  And I was annoyed to find little papers, beads, plastic army men and, occasionally, food in the tail-hole of our horse.

So I put the tail back in. 

***

We have been eating pistachios lately. Un-shelled.  Which means they are still in their shells. That's the kind of word that drives me crazy.  "Un-shelled." 

***

[They are delicious, by the way.  Now and then, I'll get one that isn't cracked open a bit, one that's completely closed up.  It hurts to throw this kind away, but what am I going to do?  Crack a tooth to get at a nut that costs about  7 cents?]

***

I was buying a bike once at Sears, the store my Dad requested that we always check first before purchasing somewhere else because he was a career Allstate man and Allstate was a "member of the Sears financial network." 

Fine.  Bikes at Sears were suitable for my needs: to ride to and from my summer job.

I found one I liked.  Good look.  Good price.  Wrong seat.  I wanted a big 'ole 3-speed seat, the kind with big springs on the bottom that really holds the whole rump, you know? 

The seat on this bike was a racing seat.

I told the salesman that I wanted this bike with that seat.

He told me it couldn't be done. 

I said that of course it could be done.  All he had to do was take the seat off of one bike and put it onto another.

He said, "Ma'am, I can't just cannibalize a bike because you want a certain seat."

I said, "I'm not asking you to eat the bicycle.  I'm just asking for one of a hundred seats you have available."

He ended up making the switch for me.  But I found out years and years later--just a few months ago--that his use of the verb "cannibalize" was in fact a proper use. 

So.  Shame on me. 

Still have that bike.  And that very same seat.  It rides perfectly.

***

[The use of this word came to my attention when a friend of mine--an Air Force Academy grad--was telling a story in which they "had canned the plane."

"Canned?"

"Cannibalized it, so the parts got sent to be used in other planes."

Huh.

And "canned" also is slang for "getting fired."  Oh, the wonders. . .]

***

Our couch is from the first year of our marriage.  For a while, it was the only piece of furniture in our household that I had chosen and I've always really liked it.  Big.  Overstuffed.  A sleeper-sofa to boot, which came in handy the night my ankle was broken and I had to avoid injuring it even further before my surgery the next day.

The back cushions are all out of shape now.  Frumpy.  Lumpy.  Uncomfortable to sit against.

So I took them off and stowed them below a desk in our foyer because--think about this--where else am I going to put two giant sofa cushions? 

I haven't decided if I will follow through with one suggested re-shaping solution, to cut out the right shape from an egg-carton-type-cushion and fit it into the upholstery.  Right now, we have bed pillows in co-ordinating  pillowcases and the couch has never been more comfy.

But if I get rid of those two cushions, the couch is ruined forever! 

But I can't keep them in the foyer forever, either.

The kids like them, though. They make for a soft fort in the space beneath the desk.

From that fort, they can look up and see our huge wooden horse, bearing down on them as though angry.  Or, maybe from down there, it looks like a horse that is happy just to prance by.