by LOU MAZE
RMG humour columnist
Some of you may remember Erma Bombeck. She wrote a newspaper column, back when women knew their place in the media. Helloise told you how to clean; Abbey doled out motherly advice; and Erma made it all funny. It was all so homey, we almost forgot, the girls were rolling in the cookie dough.
Erma wrote a piece about clothes hangers that made me laugh so hard, I reverted to a fetal position, wet myself and got bounced out of the library.
I thought of her yesterday, when the rod in our closet broke and all of my husband’s clothes slinked to the floor. As I tried to retrieve some of his shirts, the rod then reverted to a teeter tooter and proceeded to dump my clothing into a whole new mess on the floor.
As I looked at the two piles I had three stunning realizations. Firstly, my husband has more clothes than I do. Secondly Erma was right, when coat hangers tangle they are mating like snakes and producing even more coat hangers, all fully mature and also ready to tangle. And thirdly, the last of my clean clothes were somewhere in the midst of this metallic orgy.
The notion that coat hangers have a will and life of their own, is easy to scoff at, until you are forced to contemplate a meeting with a Bank Manager in your bra and panties.
This lead me to the kitchen because that’s where the beer is. (In case you think an intervention is in order, remember I am Swedish and Irish, a genetic medley that leads to the consumption of flammables, so a little breakfast lager in my underwear is a minor concern.)
I mentioned to my husband, in words that don’t lend themselves well to mainstream publications, that one of us really should have fixed the rod in the closet. By us, I mean the one who gets tools every Christmas and actually knows the difference between a Phillips, a Roberts and a Harvey Wallbanger.
I was hoping he would forget that buying a new rod was on my shopping list and not on his. Thankfully he did, so at least his memory loss is serving a purpose.
I made it to the meeting sober and wearing clothes. Turns out what you really need to wear to the bank is a good credit rating. Mine is somewhere at the bottom of my closet.
