Cover Me
(I have a big reveal coming on Friday, a major mea culpa if you will, so make sure to tune in!)
There are two types of people. What those two types are varies, depending on whom you talk to.
There are coffee drinkers and tea drinkers. I once stopped returning a guy’s phone calls because he didn’t drink coffee or alcohol. I just kind of figured he was a sociopath. I mean, no coffee? What do you do with him at 7:00 a.m.? Well, I mean, AFTER that. And how would he ever understand my devotion to my French press?
(I didn’t stop returning his phone calls just for that, I was JK. He WAS a sociopath. That story is in the book).
There are conservatives and liberals. If you were as fully ensconced in the online dating world as I was (WAS- never again) for two years, you would know that liberal men usually state in their profiles: “Trump voters please swipe left.” Whoa. Alrighty then, don’t mind if I do.
There are night owls and early birds. Having been married to a night owl, I personally don’t see this as a major obstacle except on vacation. I would be up at 5:00 a.m. working out, reading, and exploring, and he’d be stumbling out of bed at 11:00. But it was doable- I liked the morning alone time, and he enjoyed sleeping in.
Then there are Introverts and extroverts. These two could not be more opposite, but for reason, they seem to attract one another, don’t they?
But after a recent lovely evening in front of a friend’s patio firepit, as I watched her cover her patio furniture, I’ve come up with another category:
People who cover their patio furniture at night, and people who don’t.
Patio furniture coverers are prudent. Sensible. Mature. Regimented. They can foresee disaster, and plan accordingly. They go to bed feeling confident that they have done the right thing, and wake to a new day filled with successes and dry furniture.
Patio furniture non-coverers are irrational. Immature. They fly by the seat of their pants, and barely remember when they last ate much less care about what the weather is doing overnight. They go to bed plagued with doubt at their own shortcomings but still whistle a happy tune, figuring that things will work out, because haven’t they always worked out in the past?
(Funny, I’m a non-coverer, but both descriptions fit me. Strange).
(Disclaimer: I refer, of course, only to patio furniture that is exposed to the wet elements. Spoiled coddled patio furniture that lay under a protective awning or a similar enclosure is not included in this category, nor is uppity furniture in a bone-dry place like Arizona).
I don’t like high maintenance anything. I’ve done my time with that part of life, and I’ll never revisit it again. I don’t want to live in a fancy high maintenance house, where I have to worry about white carpets and expensive furniture. I don’t want a high maintenance job, where I have to expend any more of my life force in a position where I could be satisfactorily replaced in three minutes. I don’t want to deal with high maintenance people, or listen to their constant complaining, gossiping and belly-aching until I can feel their toxicity seep into my bloodstream.
And I certainly don’t want to worry about needy high-maintenance patio furniture.
“My name is Mary and I am a non-coverer.”
There, I’ve said it. While I store my patio furniture in the winter, it is exposed to the elements all spring, summer and fall. I do my best to keep it clean and presentable, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to revolve my life around chairs. I know it will last longer if I am more vigilant, but I just can’t work up the energy to care anymore.
The thing is, I used to be a lot more worried about my jaw-droppingly expensive patio furniture than I am now. When I first got it, every time I saw a weather report predicting rain, I would store the cushions inside until the storm passed. I would be very pleased with myself as I placed the dry cushions back out, knowing guests could sit on them without getting a wet bum.
Now it’s every man for himself.
It got exhausting, always worrying about those cushions. There were times when I would bring the cushions in before a storm, replace them dry, and then wake up to see that they had been soaked anyway from a freak storm cell that blew in while I slept. There was simply no way to protect the cushions and live a full and fruitful life. I became obsessed, always wondering how my cushions were doing, and scanning the weather reports endlessly.
(Yeah, I know furniture covers are easier. I just never got around to it. I’m actually considering the purchase).
My cushions are holding up well. They are high-quality outdoor furniture cushions and live up to the hype. But every Mother’s Day weekend when we put out the patio furniture and cushions, we can see that they are slowly succumbing to wear-and-tear. And no matter how hard I scrub them twice a year, here in hot and humid New Jersey, some of the mildew stains simply cannot be eradicated.
Hey, we all weather. And no matter how hard we try, we cannot live our lives trying to protect something that simply cannot always be protected. Sometimes, we just have to let the elements have their way with us.
Mildew stains be damned.