I plan my time carefully, scheduling certain activities in concert with certain days of the week. Monday is wash day when I bring my laundry downstairs, place it in the laundry room, and wait for someone to get sick of tripping over it. Tuesday is nail painting day because the grandniece is home to do my toes. Wednesday, well, so on and so on. Yesterday I had to bump my toe painting because the kid wasn't home, so I thought I'd iron at least the collar and cuffs of my very special 100 percent cotton white brocade shirt. Tuesday was to become the day the music died.

 

So I dragged out my purple asbestos covered ironing board and, placing one foot on one of the scissor legs, tugged for all I was worth to open the thing up. There is a bit of rust on the legs, so half way up I had to give it an additional jerk, trying not to aggravate the muscles in my back just waiting for any old excuse to seize up like a blown motor. As I did this, I noticed a long squeeeak. Hmph, I never noticed that before. I locked the board and plugged in my iron, looking for something to do during the fifteen minutes it takes the thing to heat up to 400 degrees. I used the time constructively and found some spray starch.

 

My mother used to wet her fingers and flick them at the iron to determine the degree of heat. Not having access to water in my bedroom, I touched the face of the iron with the speed of light, not wanting to burn my finger. EEEEOW! That had to have been at least 350 degrees judging by the size of the bubble appearing on my pointer. I attended to my third degree burn and sucked it up as I always do when dealing with crippling pain. I am the original buttercup.

 

I sprayed the collar of my 100 percent cotton white brocade shirt and began to iron. I noticed that each time I ran the iron back and forth, the board squeaked. I stopped ironing and the squeak stopped. I continued ironing and the squeak picked up in a definite rhythm. After a few more swipes, the song "Great Balls of Fire" popped into my head, and I began ironing to the tune of it. I had to iron pretty fast.

 

Music takes me over at times, and my feet started wiggling around a bit. I began humming as the collar of my 100 percent cotton white brocade shirt stiffened up nicely. I was experiencing a satisfying sense of accomplishment and continued ironing the entire shirt, singing loudly now. I sprayed the front, smoothed it out and blasted out the chorus.
My iron seemed to like the music and joined in with pffttts and toots that sounded like a horn section with Blake Lewis beatboxing in the background.

 

So there we were, a mini-orchestra of three, squeaking, rocking and beatboxing to Jerry Lee Lewis, who may or may not be a relative of Blake's. It was a Kodak moment in my tedious toe painting Tuesday. I was flying high with Tom Cruise. I had even forgotten about my pointer finger bubble.

 

As in all puckish moments, a snag brings reality crashing down. My horn section had attached itself to a button, and in doing so had caused me to iron in several accordion-like creases on the front of my 100 percent cotton white brocade shirt as I was shaking my nerves and rattling my brain. In an attempt to dislodge the button, a puddle of water escaped from the iron and created a large rusty stain dead center of my favorite 100 percent cotton white brocade shirt.

 

A knee jerk reaction took over, and I began rapidly running my iron back and forth to dislodge the button. I finally freed the button and closely examined the stained area. The horn section became eerily silent as my myopic eyes wandered down to the smoke. Seems I had neglected to completely remove the 400 degree iron from the bottom hem. I peeled my shirt away in horror and saw a perfectly singed imprint of an arc on my beautiful brocade. One last pathetic pffttt and what sounded like a nose whistle escaped from the horn.

 

Great Balls of Fire. What a freakin' thrill. It broke my will. Tom Cruise crashed and burned. My iron, ironing board, and my 100 percent cotton white brocade shirt got tossed into the trash. I should have done my own toes.