We are now on bedroom redo No. 4. I think it’s No. 4. I’m beginning to lose track.
When we first moved into our house, eight years ago, my wife and our then 4-year-old daughter, Emma, put together a bedroom design that I figured would last 30 years. Instead, it lasted three years.
Then, when Emma was 7, she and my wife put together a room design that I figured would last 40 years. I think the design centered around Barbie. Or some mermaid.
Then, when Emma was 10, my wife and Emma put together a room design based on the room design theme of dance. I figured that design would last 50 years. But, now that Emma is 12, she and my wife are working on yet another room design.
See, when I was a kid, we didn’t think much about room designs. I have six brothers and sisters and, since my dad was in the Army, we moved a lot.
Sometimes, the places the Army gave us to live in were not exactly spacious. I’m not sure, but I don’t think, that back then the army folks who crunched the budget numbers worried much about kids having to share rooms with their siblings.
“We can’t worry about four boys having to share a room. Castro has missiles,” I’m pretty sure is what the Army budget folks said.
So, most of the time, when I was growing up, I shared a room with my three brothers. When you share a room with three brothers you don’t worry much about what the room looks like. You worry about what it smells like.
I’ll give you a hint: It seldom smelled like lilac.
For the must part, I’ve let room designs come and go, but this last one has me baffled. First of all, a new room design wasn’t even in the offing until my wife, Emma and I were at something called a “World Market” in Kansas City.
I don’t like the World Market in Kansas City. I don’t like it mainly because it’s full of stuff that, for the most part, I could care less about. Oh, sure, they have wine and some food stuff but that’s about it. The rest of store is full of stuff that people like my wife think they can’t live without, and people like me think we can’t live with.
The only thing I like about the World Market in Kansas City is that it’s just across the street from Kelly’s Westport Inn.
Wife: We need to stop at World Market. I need to get some things you’ll hate.
Me: No. I don’t want to. And I mean it. Nothing you can say will change my mind.
Wife: Afterwards we can go to Kelly’s.
Me: OK, then.
It was at World Market that Emma found a large print of Paris (France, not Texas). Then she found a print of the Eiffel Tower (the one in France, not Texas). Emma showed the prints to my wife.
Wife: Oh, Emma.
Emma: I know.
Wife: Those would look great in …
Emma: My room. With …
Emma: A new TV.
I don’t understand my wife and Emma.
All I understand is that, when we left World Market, we had spent way more money than I cared to think about and my wife and Emma were talking about color schemes, comforters and curtains.
They were still talking room design stuff when I was sitting at the bar in Kelly’s drinking a beer. While they talked, I drank my beer.
I decided, while drinking my beer, that I would never feel comfortable in a bar that smelled like lilac.
Address correspondence to Mike Pound, c/o The Joplin Globe, P.O. Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802, or via e-mail at mpound@joplinglobe.com.
