Sometimes a piece of string…

…is just a piece of string. My husband, without a hint of sarcasm, asked, “Is it OK if I throw away this piece of string?” Baffled, I looked up from my coffee and saw him holding a piece of string that I had left on the kitchen counter after opening a bag of birdseed. When it dawned on me what the heck he was talking about, I was horrified at what a tyrant I had become. The poor guy was terrified to throw *anything* away for fear of reprisal. “How many dishes did I have to wash before I could use that Palmolive bottle to make a mermaid–or is it a seated cat? Now I’ll never know!” (Crazy woman shakes fist at garbage truck.)

All sorts of things that would, in a normal household, end up in the recycle bin are the raw materials for unborn art: Ajax bottles are angels, honey jars are owls, chopsticks are arms or legs, plastic forks and knives are claws and wings. Bleach bottles are elephant tables and pigs. Coke bottles are monkey tables. I even collected lint from the dryer to use instead of paper pulp (unsuccessfully). And then there’s the recipe I found on the web that uses egg cartons and glossy magazines. I am going to do it, one of these days, hopefully before the mountain of trash comes crashing down around our ears.

Here is the string, immortalized, before going into the trash.