Call & Response

The Call: Foolish Notions — Cheryl

Long ago, in a seemingly different world, my mother went to beauty school and eventually opened her own shop on the second floor of her parents’ house. But one day (the eve of her wedding, perhaps), she closed the door on her shop and walked away. Her bachelor brother lived in the house until his death about ten years ago. At various points during our childhood (not many), my brother, sister and I got to visit mom’s closed beauty shop when visiting my uncle. In high school, my sister and I even got our photography-minded friend to take pictures of the shop, and she captured romantic images of these strange machines, scissors, curlers, magazines, even cigarette butts in an ashtray. Following my mother’s death a year or two after her brother’s, my sister and I — with those vintage images and romantic notions in mind — requested the contents of Mom’s shop. Unfortunately, reality set in shortly after Dennis and I moved them to our house. Now, these beauty instruments (torture devices?) reside (along with lots of other “stuff”) in our second living room, which we affectionately refer to as the mold room, as it’s so full of mold that we can use it for little more than storage. Once we have the money to gut that room (and the poorly ventilated crawlspace beneath it), these beasts will have to go, but I still don’t know where to …

The Response: Dale — Jessica

“But if you refuse to entertain a notion – which is just a fancy way of saying that you refuse to think about a certain idea – you have to be much braver than someone who is merely facing some blood-thirsty animals, or some parents who are upset to find their little darling at the bottom of a well, because nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself.”

― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid

Then again, if you entertain a notion, you may end up with a gecko in your home.