The Dress

We’ve talked about my sister, Marilyn, many times on this blog so you might feel you know her as a friend.  Someone you might like to chat with over a cup of coffee.

Marilyn is the opposite of a hoarder and has an intense desire to purge her living space every few months.  She loves to reorganize, in fact she says it is her superpower.  I know one thing for sure, I’m never going to enlist her help to clean out my closet.  

You might consider the purging thing a quirky trait but wait there are more.   She refers to her need to have everything in perfect order as her need to balance jots and tittles   As an example of her jots and tittles: If I pick up something for her at the store and it cost $10.27  you can be sure that she is going to pull out a $10 bill a quarter and two pennies.  After all things need to be in order, that’s counting jots and tittles.  Marilyn is honest to the  penny, almost to a fault. 

When she gathers items to be given back to the universe, she often puts things in the ‘For Free’ box in the community laundry room where she lives.  She is tickled when her stuff is gone in a matter of a few minutes.  Apparently these older folks spend a lot of time washing clothes or simply checking the ‘Free Box’  for treasures. 

So now we get to the dress.  When Marilyn went to do her usual Sunday laundry, there was a dress hanging over the Free Box.  This was an extra small Lands’ End dress.  As far as Marilyn is concerned a Lands’ End dress is the equivalent of Jimmy Choo shoes.  WOW, what a find, she whisked the dress home and tried it on and it was made for her, it fit perfectly.  The three-quarter length sleeve is just what she wants and the bright color cotton fabric was the boost her wardrobe needed.  She was so proud of her free dress she wore it to lunch with her son and his girlfriend. Everyone agreed her new free dress was perfect. 

Move along to the next Sunday when laundry day comes around again.  A lady has posted a note saying she is missing a dress and if anyone mistakenly picked it up she’d like to have her favorite dress returned.  The lady went into great detail to describe the dress, it was a size large, black knit with short sleeves and a lace collar.  Hmmm, this is nothing like Marilyn’s free dress, but then again maybe Marilyn’s dress was not meant for the Free Box, maybe someone simply hung it near the Free Box. After all, you don’t just give away a Lands’ End dress.  

So Marilyn gently folds up the dress and places it in a plastic bag with a note explaining this dress doesn’t match the description of the missing  dress,  but if it is  indeed the dress the lady lost, Marilyn is returning it.  Marilyn left her note and the lady’s note together on the neatly folded dress.    The next time she peeked into the laundry the dress was gone but the notes were still there on the counter.   

We can assume Marilyn’s colorful free dress was not the missing black knit dress. So where’s the Lands’ End dress now? Did the lady with the missing black knit dress take the colorful cotton dress as an offering but left the notes (why would she do that?) or is a complete stranger now wearing that great Lands’ End dress?    

Marilyn is lamenting the loss of the dress, but she always does what she feels is the right thing. Hmm, was it the right thing? It doesn’t matter, Marilyn’s moral compass is straight and true. She can rest easy that all’s right with the universe, well at least her universe.  

I wonder if she’ll run into that dress in the dining room?  It certainly won’t be on the lady who left the note looking for the missing size large dress.