Strange Things I Remember

I just cleaned most of the wood window blinds in my house today. Not a fun chore, but something that has to be done all too periodically. I never do the task without remembering Mrs. Kincaid. I cannot for the life of me remember what she looked like but I certainly do recall her personality and her tirades. It was over forty years ago at our second apartment that I had to clean the blinds---they were called Venetian blinds then---before we could move out of our rented apartment. We had rented the small sixty-five dollar a month unit so we could have air-conditioning for the hot summer months in central Texas. It was a big stretch for us to leave the forty dollar tiny efficiency we had rented since day one of marriage. Before we moved from this grandiose three room place, everything had to be spotless according to Mrs. Kincaid. I cleaned and cleaned again until I was thoroughly satisfied that the apartment would pass inspection. So I thought! Well, not Mrs. Kincaid's white-glove inspection. Nothing! Nothing was to her liking. Never had been as long as we lived there which fortunately was a very short duration. The entire time we lived there she had aggravated us on every thing she could think of. She would call on garbage collection days to make sure the garbage men had been down our street. She showed up quite often just to nose around. She called to ask any kind of question she happened to think of any given moment.

For the final inspection, perfection was critical because we desperately needed our fifty dollar deposit returned before we moved north in the big state. Bob had just graduated from college and it was our first anniversary weekend. On Monday he was to begin classes in seminary and we barely had two nickels to rub together. So fifty dollars was essential to our first few days in Fort Worth. On her supposed last walk-through she bitterly complained that the blinds weren't clean enough. So for the umpteenth time, I cleaned them again. By this time I was so exhausted and the tears began to flow. All I wanted to do was leave, shut the door and get into our 1963 Dodge Polara with its hitched-on trailer and "get out of Dodge". No pun intended! It was Waco, not Dodge---Kansas came later in the game. After many tears and a not-so-nice feud with the landlady, we finally got our money. She was not happy, just because she wasn't a happy person. We were thrilled (more like relieved) and drove away with our money in our pocket. I determined that day I would never have Venetian blinds again in my lifetime. Well, these aren't Venetian---but they are horizontal slats that collect dust and cleaning them isn't fun. What happened to my memory on the day we bought this house? Now I cannot clean these blinds without remembering dear ol' Mrs. Kincaid. God rest her soul!