Letters From The Barn: Death Of The Tissue Cozy
They've stopped making the supplies for those tissue box cozies that your great aunt used to make and give to everyone. You know the ones, a plastic netted house for the tissue box whether tall or long, that was covered in older lady stitchery the way a young girl covers her school notebooks with hearts or her latest favorite band. Obsessively. Because, everything needs a cozy, does it not?
Now, despite being of the anti-cozy set, this still dismays me. What will the ladies do with their time? I know there are other stitchery projects. And products. But don't you need something like that in your home? It's kind of like having a fridge with no unintelligible kid's drawing on it. Even people without kids pick them up somewhere along the way from an errant niece or nephew.
The tissue cozies are the same. Even if your great aunt Ruth didn't make one for you, someone else's did. And you bought that at a garage sale or got left it in a will or just moved into a home that had one high up on the bathroom shelf and never threw it out as how could you, with all its old lady charm.
So, this will not save the economy or lower gas prices, but I want these supplies back on store shelves so that the crafters of the world can inundate us with things like this again. Okay. Not inundate. Maybe shyly hand one over at Christmas with a Santa Claus hugging Frosty pattern on it and something that may possibly be birds or perhaps trees in the background. Every end table needs one thing like that, don't you think? It's either that or a handmade ashtray. And, remember, you quit smoking!
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Meriwether O'Connor is a columnist and short story writer. She works one on one with folks trying to get their writing where they would like it to be. Please contact her through this ungodly contraption called the internet if you'd like your own writing to be quicker and less painful. She'll sit down with you weekly over tea, the telephone or the godforsaken email and surprise you with how much a small chat can help you when you need it most. meriwetheroconnor@hotmail.com.