Life: Red Expectations

The red waffle doona cover is intrinsically cosier than a cover of any other colour or texture. Fact. It brings to mind those other things that are greater than the sum of their parts that modern science cannot quite explain. For example, the restorative properties of the ‘post-mix’ coke bought hastily in a drive-thru and drunk through a straw with lots of ice when you’re hungover like a bastard (also known as the McCoke McMiracle McCure) or that way tinned peaches, when refrigerated and eaten on a hot day, will hit a certain spot at the back of my throat that nothing else can even get close to and make me instantly feel five degrees cooler.

Personally, I am planning to send a swatch of red waffle fabric to the Laboratoire Garnier in the hope that I can take a share of the THERMOCORE HEATWEAVE™ they will no doubt discover and, in this way, make my fortune.

My own discovery of its powers happened one wintery evening in 2011 when I stayed over at a friend’s house. She put a red waffle cover on the guest bed and I slept so well and so cosily (despite also sleeping with my then-four year old’s foot jammed firmly in my kidneys) that I have never forgotten it. In fact, I have searched high and low for one of my own ever since.

Just last week I had the great pleasure of staying with her again. As I prepared to leave work and head to her house, I spoke to one of my workmates about the red waffle cover in hushed and reverent tones, my eyes filling with fond tears at the very memory of its wafflyness.

“Do you think,” I tentatively asked him, “That, having invited myself for dinner and to stay the night, it might be one step too far to request in advance that she put the red waffle cover on my bed as well?”

My workmate wasn’t surprised. He knows about my ‘Margarita Expectations’. You see, there’s this house where I was once served frozen margaritas and I have since lived in the hope that it will happen again, even when just dropping past said house briefly. I’ve remarked once or twice to the owners that their blender is looking sadly underutilised and have even considered arriving with my own pre-salt-rimmed glass as a kind of visual cue…

As it turned out with the red waffle cover, the best strategy was to simply watch my friend make up the guest bed in much the same way as a small puppy watches its owner walk near the drawer that contains the can opener.

“Why are you watching me like that?”, my friend asked me, somewhat suspiciously, perhaps thinking I was expecting her to short-sheet the guest bed or put itching powder on the pillow so I’d think I had woken with The Nits.

“BECAUSE I’M HOPING YOU’LL USE THE RED WAFFLE COVER!” I blurted and it all gushed out: my Thermocore Heatweave™ theories, my fruitless quest for one of my own, the frozen Margarita that would never be mine.

“Oh, that old thing? You can have it. We never use it,” my friend replied.

CUT TO: the next day at work, with me excitedly showing off my prize.

“Waffly!” my workmate remarked, full of admiration. “But how???”

I shrugged, myself unsure. Perhaps my ‘chutzpah’ (a word that is apparently pronounced like you’re clearing your throat) is the thing that I should be submitting to the Laboratoire Garnier for scientific testing. Perhaps my chutzpah is the real modern miracle.

Either that or I just have a really kind friend.

Do you have a recent act of kindness or a modern miracle to share?

 Image : Great Expectations iPhone Charger via here