“How on earth am I going to cut these things straight?!”
One of our cats looks appalled and the other one hides under the couch in fright.
You see, we’ve got curtains in every room of the house except in the room I use for writing. We have just never come around buying them, they were never really needed. But now I work from home every day and am supposed to sit there, typing away, instead of at the dinner table or in front of the telly. And guess through which window the sun tends to shine like it’s intending to burn and kill? Yes. So curtains were needed urgently.
Because high-quality curtains are expensive and we might move houses in one or two years, I opted for my favourite store for cheap, but good enough interior goodies: IKEA and one of their packages of quite pretty and romantic lace curtains. This did imply that I had to make them the right size myself, that is, I had to cut two feet off the lower side. Piece of cake, anyone can do it, the store assistant assured me.
And I believed her. I mean, how difficult can it be to cut a bit of fabric? I was wrong.
The day Matt and I were going to hang our curtains had arrived. We chose to hang them first and then decide how short they were to become. Just below the windowsill, but above the radiator seemed right. I got out my scissors and hesitated…
Back to simple present.
“How on earth am I going to cut these things straight?!”
Not only do I cause a reaction from my cats. Matt also hears my cry for help and comes back into the room.
“What’s wrong honey, anything I can do?”
“Well, as we don’t have a long enough measuring rod to properly do this, I was going to just follow the pattern of lace dots and holes. They should be straight. But I don’t feel it will work. Not with them still hanging. And the fabric won’t stop sliding and moving!”
“Uhm, can’t we just like, pour the fabric over the edge of the table and then cut the curtains by following that edge?”
“How is that supposed to result in straight curtains?”
“Or we can fold the curtains in two and just cut the fold line?”
“How can you even come up with those stupid solutions? Obviously, one can tell in advance that they will turn out a disaster. If you have no help to offer, then just shove it!”
Oh dear God, I had done it again. I had completely aimed my frustration with the prospect of potentially having to spend three hours cutting these curtains inch for inch at the perceived stupidity of my boyfriend. Sulking and pouting followed. Including a Matt wondering why living and communicating with me always has to be so damn difficult. Well, excuse me sir, while you were smoking pot with your friends as a way of developing your social skills, I was a bit preoccupied with fighting off an abusive boyfriend and completing two fuckin’ university studies. So yes, I do have a bit of a shortcoming in the social skills department, but I’m still learning.
That’s the endless and dangerous road our argument went down. Character assassination, Dr. Phil would say. In the meantime, our poor curtains were lying on the floor, making a nice bed for our two cats.
In the end we made a wise chose. To bloody hell cut those damn curtains and let it be over with. We chose to work together. We would follow the pattern inch for inch with a pencil, stick the pencil in one of the holes of the fabric after four or five inches and then he would hold the pencil and I would cut towards it. That should definitely result in a straight line. Finally my curtains were hanging. The sun still shines through a bit, but they are pretty.
While eating dinner I could peek through the door of my office room and look at my new curtains.
“Honey…?” I began, “Take a look at the curtains…”
Matt looked up at me, then at the curtains, and then back at me. We both broke into a smile and sniggered, shaking our heads. The curtains were obviously cut asymmetrically…
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Bravo to you and Matt for getting those curtains eventually done, even if they turned out to be a bit uneven in the end … :) Remember once trying to get a load of vertical blind strips even. Simple task you’d think? Much simpler than, say, measuring & cutting curtains? And in theory that’d be right cept these dratted things seemed to take on a life of their own and refused to co-operate. Good job I wasnt trying to do them with the chipster as me + bad mood + scissors could have equalled the chipster fleeing for the hills …
Left by London-Lass on Monday, June 30th, 2008