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| The Table | |
| By jean.day | ||||||||||||||
| 13 December 2006 | ||||||||||||||
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Another U3A offering. The topic was to animate an object. I redid it to make it 750 words because that is the maximum allowed on Bonzer - if any of you know of that on line magazine. The Table It's pretty dark and lonely down here. I don't get nearly as much attention as I used to. I was the centre of my world for most of my life, and now that I am considered too old and not posh enough for my owners, they put me down in the basement, away from the comings and goings in the house. It's not that I am not handsome. I am made of real oak , and I must admit my most recent owner did a good job of refinishing me to make my wood shine and all the natural grain of the wood came into its greatest beauty. But then he covered me with an oilcloth, so now nobody can even see how beautiful I am. I am round - but I stretch in the middle so I can be made into a large oval table, bigger than my previous owners ever needed. I had four chairs sitting around me, cheap things, painted various colours - nothing like my quality, but I knew my owners couldn't afford anything more. They only put a cover on me when they had meals. I originally came from my lady owner's family who lived on a farm along way away. They had a big family, but as the children grew up, they had furniture in excess of their needs. My lady chose me specially to take with her when she married. She was the one who polished me and kept me nice and without a mark. Her children, two girls called Judy and Jeanie, were not so very careful. They sometimes put hot cups down on me, and my lady shouted at them, and so she should. Yes, I was the centre of their house. Not only did they eat on me, but the girls and their mother who was a teacher did their homework on me. They played bridge on me, cut dresses out on me, and put their heavy sewing machine on me too. The man of the house sat with his newspaper sprawled over me late at night while he drank beer. But then, one day, I was pulled apart and taken down to the basement. I was being replaced. I couldn't believe it. I got a glimpse of the new table - and it was shiny and I could hardly believe it - veneered wood. There were matching chairs and although the table was round like I am, it had nowhere my depth and quality. I thought my owners must have taken leave of their senses. So that was my first basement - and I was pretty much ignored there. The girls had gone off, and my owners didn't need more than one table in their house. But a few years later, I had hopes that I was going to be resurrected. Judy’s husband thought I looked very smart, and he carried me carefully into the truck and padded me for the 400 mile journey to their home. But when I got to his new house, I was disillusioned yet again. That shiny fake thing that my other owners had had in their living room, was now being moved into Judy's house in her living room, and I was put down in her basement. I will say that my new man enjoyed it when he sanded and polished me up to make me look cleaner and smarter, but then he covered me up again, and here I have been ever since. I am near the washer and dryer, so they use me to put the washing on. I have a plastic pail of clothes pegs on me, which they use when it is nice enough to hang clothes outside (although since my Judy died, her man doesn't do that very much). Above me are big oval pictures of my original owners - from the farm where I was first used - so that is nice. Judy used to come to talk to them, and enjoyed seeing them there in their old fashioned glory, but now that she is gone, I expect they will soon be gone too. Judy's man isn't much for sentiment. So I go into my 100th year - as strong and as useful as I was when I was created - always living in hope that one day, one of Judy's children will remember me and put me back in my rightful place as centre of their world.
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