This post is really less about my trip to Toronto and more about how I am absolutely my mother's daughter.
Toronto is great. We spent Saturday wondering around the city, eating brunch, checking out hip furniture stores, drinking the best latte I've ever had... Anyways, we come to the Drake Hotel, where they are having a flea market/yard sale including selling things that used to be in the hotel, and are no longer being used. Among these items was a very cool chain-mail curtain. Precisely saw it first, and we both agreed that it would look fantastic in la loft separating the dining area from the living area, or something. I love a good yard sale bargaining session, so I tracked down the guys who were selling it.
They offered it to me for $20, which is awesome, and I was all excitedly ready to take it, when the Lady of Leisure reminded me that we did drive here, in her car, which is a small hatchback.
I've grown up with very resourceful DYI parents. My mother especially, has a penchant for finding "treasures", at yard sales, at flea markets, and in the trash. Usually, she can fix these finds up nicely. I have a chair in my room that she found curbside before I moved to Pittsburgh. We painted it, and gave it new cushions, and it's lovely.
My mother is very good about fitting these "treasures" into vehicles and transporting them home. Sometimes though, she has had to convince my father that rescuing these pieces of furniture is a good idea. Luckily, her persistence, is apparently hereditary.
When the question of transporting the curtain back to the States came up, I found myself making the arguments I've heard my mother make a thousand times. "Oh, it will fit, no problem! We'll make room. The suitcases can sit in the back with me, and we'll put it in the trunk. I'll carry it, I'll take it in a cab now. It will be great."
And just like that, I found myself walking down the streets of Toronto with a chainmail curtain slung over my shoulder.
At one point, I was stopped by a man in an SVU. "Where did you get that wonderful object?" He asked. I told him, and assured him that they did indeed have another one, and he sped off, presumably to go get his own chain maille curtain.
The day of our departure arrived, and the curtain coiled up in the trunk, with me and the luggage sitting in the back. We get to border control, hand over our passports, take off our sunglasses, and answer the questions of how we know one another, what we were doing in Canada, how long we were there, etc.
"Are you bringing anything back?" asked the border patrol official? "Did you purchase anything while you were there?"
The Lady of Leisure looks in her rearview mirror before responding, "Just this chain maille curtain."
He pauses for a second before shaking his head and saying "Move along."
So now, the chain maille curtain is home, and I just need to figure out how to hang it. Listen up Pittsburgh. I'm going to have an actual Steel Curtain in my home. THAT's how devoted a Steeler fan I am.
