I mentioned that when the Hittler family moved out of the Siesta Manor Mobil(e) Home Park–and when their trailer was moved–a table was left behind which must have been stored under the trailer but forgotten. Of course, we grabbed it right away as we were still using a small apartment-sized table in our trailer.
Not long after we got it, we got a Welsh Corgi puppy from the woman who lived next to Pixie and Jimmy N whose dog had gotten pregnant from some random dog walking by. We did not take as good of care of Bandit as we should have–my mother worked all day, and we were at school, so a high-energy puppy had lots of time on his hands to gnaw on things and engage in all sorts of high-jinks even when chained in the small kitchen for the day. Oh, how wrong we did by that dog until my sainted mother took him to the shelter over an hour away and cried on the ride home. I would like to say I’m a better person now, but a guilt-inducing dream last night of a negligently injured cat indicates I fear I am not.
You know, I’m not sure when our family stopped using that table–probably when I was in high school, when my sainted mother would have had many opportunities to inherit another. Or perhaps it was after college, when we moved to the house my aunt owned in 1995 if she had a better table for us. I know that I got the Hittler table when I moved into my own apartment–I’d thrown it atop my possessions loaded in the cargo van I used to move, and when I had to brake hard, it slid forward and hit the whiplash-protective top of the driver’s seat.
When I got married, my beautiful wife had a nicer table which we used in our homes in Casinoport and in Old Trees, so it was taken apart and stored.
It makes appearances every decade or so when we have people over. In the basement of Old Trees, I set it up to have some friends over for games after our boy had gone to bed upstairs. At Nogglestead, we had a very populated Thanksgiving, probably fifteen years ago, when I set it up. But it’s been sitting in the garage since. For some reason, I stored the legs downstairs and the top in the garage until I cleaned out the store room–which I guess was just last year, but it’s been a long year.
But with the guests coming over, out it comes.
The kittens (who are 3, 3, and 2 years old now) wouldn’t mind if I kept it in the living room all year. Put together or incomplete or maybe made into a kitten jungle gym!
But after today, it will go back in the garage for another decade, maybe. Or until one of the boys moves out and needs a table which is likely to be far sooner than I really want.
At any rate, when I call it “The Hittler Table,” people hear Hitler. Which is appropriate because they are pronounced the same. But in the 1980s, Hitler was just a guy who lost a war and not the secular Devil he is now. How much of that was due to the safety of using Nazis as the only safe villains in the thrillers starting in the 1980s? Discuss.
