Loose Ends
Just repurposed
Susan Nienow

I don't want a party. No balloons on my mailbox or a flock of flamingos in my front yard. Don't take me out for ice cream and have the waitstaff sing to me. No black crepe paper. I just want a normal birthday like last year or the year before. One that gets moved to a different date because the family can't get together that day. One with a cake made from a boxed mix and with an assortment of candles because we never have more than a few of each kind.

It's not growing older that's bothering me. It's my thumb. I think it has arthritis. Sometimes it doesn't do what thumbs are supposed to do. I can't open jars. I can't always pick things up. It is unreliable.

I guess I could get a ring for it. Then it could be decorative. Just not very useful.

I have noticed a new word cropping up in magazines and on home and garden shows: repurposed. That means you use an old item for a new purpose, like turning leaky tin buckets into planters or converting an old bridesmaid's dress into a "costume" for a high school play.

Repurposed is a handy word. It explains why some people think a bathtub full of petunias in their front yard is vintage and not just junk. But the tub has to be "old." A fiberglass shower stall just wouldn't have the same effect.

It explains why we keep hauling that old copper washtub from house to house, waiting for its "repurpose" to show itself. People pay money for those tubs. I have seen them in antique shops. What do people do with them? I am assuming they have a washing machine.

We could put fireplace logs in the tub and sit it on the hearth, but we have a gas fireplace, and one of the residents in this house is a realist. He thinks people will look at it and think, "What is that doing there? They can't burn logs in that fireplace." So it collects spider webs in the garage.

Maybe human beings can be repurposed, too. Sometimes I am the leaky tin bucket and can't do what I used to - like work in the garden for hours in the heat. So, I decided to repurpose that part of myself the other day and clean my office, but inside work is never as riveting as working in the garden. I got the vacuum cleaner out and then called a friend to meet me for lunch. So maybe I got the new purpose wrong.

I can't do cross-stitch easily anymore either. Bum thumb, remember? And, it's so small! So, I've moved on to crossword puzzles - a different use for that part of my brain. My other half says I really need a repurpose for collecting cross-stitch pattern books.

I'm not getting old, just repurposed.