Notes From My Knapsack 12-18-05
Jeff Gill

Making the List

If you were to try to follow him around that night, you could identify your quarry by the junk mail envelope that never left his right hand.
Even pushing doors open, the white rectangle stayed between thumb and fist, corners rounding as the paper rubbed walls and shelves and windows.
In a coat not too stylish, but not warm enough either, he traipsed up and down the sidewalks of downtown, ducking in and out of shops of all sorts. He’d done the mall thing already, and didn’t find anything that seemed right, but since the whole shopping thing wasn’t his favorite activity anyhow, he may have been a bit distracted.
What he wanted was a gift for his wife that wasn’t clothing (which he wasn’t going to try and buy for her under any circumstances) or jewelry (since she said she had enough, which probably meant his previous attempts at purchasing were no better than his taste in clothes).
He’d asked her to make a list for him of things she’d like for Christmas, but that was a little slower in coming than the kids. Once he got the list, on the back of yet another credit card application (contents in the shredder bin, white envelope too wide and crisp to waste), and an evening came open, it was time to go on the hunt.
Most of the items on the list were decorative housewares or pieces of furniture. There was a particular wish she had for a light-colored wood pie safe, and a spot where she’d put it, but that hadn’t been an easy find. Plenty of dark-wood pie safes, and a number of blond breakfronts or cupboards, but not what was on the list.
So he had come downtown to the eclectic array of shops, some well-run and well-lit and others less so, but all guaranteed to have older or less mass-taste items than in the strip malls. There was some stuff that looked like it had been through a fire, and other furniture items that may have been made by a remedial shop class, but then in one place tucked around a corner was a tall piece of furniture that may or may not be what she wanted.
So driving home he thought, and thought again, and then made up his mind. Walking in the house, he asked "Are the kids all busy at the moment?"
"They have a practice at the church, and I just came home to run some laundry through, why? I didn’t expect you home yet," she answered.
"Do we all have underwear if I kidnap you until we need to pick up the gang?"
"Sure, it isn’t a critical load," was her answer, and they jumped in his car and they drove back down to where he thought he’d parked before.
"I get turned around, so I’m not sure where we’re going, but . . . well, I found something from your list, sort of, but it wasn’t quite right, and rather than buying the wrong two-ton thing, I thought . . . I hope this isn’t messing up a surprise."
"No, no," she said quickly, "presents are great but a big, ugly surprise is no good deal."
They parked and started around the block. "I thought it was right next to this place with the neon sign," he said while looking around at the upper storefronts along the block.
"Maybe there was another sign that looked similar on the next street," she offered.
They strolled along, ending up hand-in-hand while waiting for a light to change as the wind blew stronger and colder. Two more corners turned behind them as they kept looking, and then down a broad stretch of sidewalk with their eyes watering in the chill.
"I can’t believe I didn’t write the name of the place down on the list," he muttered.
"What about down there," she said while pointing with her free hand across him to a wide doorway. Without hesitation, they both turned and stepped through and out of the wind.
"I didn’t even know there was anything like this down here," she gasped, stopping a few steps inside. They looked down a long hallway apparently through the middle of the block, with airy cast iron beams lifting glass panels, ice-frosted, in angles above the arcade of dangling banners and irregular doorways.
They walked along, soaking up more atmosphere than window shopping, since most of the businesses were closed, but a few were open and active. They came out into the air again on the next street, glancing into a last place which seemed likely.
"We’re not going to find it again," he said glumly.
"It’s OK, we need to pick up the kids anyhow," she said with much more cheer. "But you know what?"
"No?"
"This time together is better gift to me than another chunk of wood. Can we do this again in a few days?"
"Sure, I don’t even have to wrap that."
"And who knows, we might even find that pie safe the third or fourth try."

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher round central Ohio; contact him at disciple@voyager.net.