2023-07-22: tat
not the north american sense ('tattoo'), but the british: something cheap, low quality. my partner and i have been together for many years. not even so much years as decades, now. in that not inconsiderable time we've built a life together. in the early years of the millennium, i moved in with her, and i didn't bring much: a double bed; a desktop computer, a playstation; a few boxes of books; my flute.
we added things as we could. not all of it was great but we were students for a number of years, and had very little money. in the early days, many things acquired on the cheap. that bed i mentioned: $100 from an elderly lady a friend knew from church. a table and four plastic chairs from ikea; these served us a dozen years.
we subtracted things as easily. a futon that didn't survive a move. an entire box lost in the same. things given away on kijiji.
but one of the things we've had for a very long time is a pair of cheap, particle board bedside tables — and when i say cheap, i'm being generous. i think they were $15 apiece at canadian tire. they've yellowed a bit in places, but somehow haven't started peeling. we've had them as long as i've been in this city. many years now. the one on my side of the bed piled high with books, an unplugged alarm clock, a handful of cheap bookmarks.
they've been good enough for a long time, but their time is up. one of the summer projects: replacing them with something better, and moving the (rickety, how-are-they-still-standing-anyway) bookshelves in our bedroom to the basement, where we already have half a dozen shelves, completely filled.
we've got the bedside table replacements in the bedroom and mostly assembled, just missing the shelves; need to figure out placement, and whether we need to cut access to the outlets, and then we'll finish everything up. we moved the old bookshelves downstairs. only temporary — they're barely holding together. i see a trip to the dump in our future. we'll get better, sturdier replacements.
the process continues.
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