I’m usually not one to fall for such displays, but this was so seductive. The way it glided on the glass. The satisfying level of grime that disappeared, leaving a transparent surface so clear and crystalline, you really got an appreciation of why some people walk into plain glass doors. Whoever owned those doors obviously had one of these machines. The good people never stood a chance.
So yes, I left the hardware store that day with that little handheld window cleaner and after a brief burst of enthusiasm, where both the kids and I fought over who would use it, it was placed under the house, and we returned to our usual half-blind living inside of opaque glass.
Once or twice, she did make a revival, but the charger and the coverings got lost and so, as such stories often go, she lay for years unloved and listless. Until this week, G sprang into action (what provoked it is a mystery to us all), new charger afoot and cleaned our murky glass.
When I walked inside, you’ll appreciate the shock. I was dumbfounded. I hardly could believe it. The whole family stood, united, staring at the same view we’d seen for years with renewed appreciation.
I reached out and touched the window as though searching for ET (carefully, I didn’t want to smudge it). It was like the barrier between me and the outside world had disappeared.
We talked in scattered, illuminated conversation…
That perhaps the sun had come out after all, but the problem was we couldn’t see it.
That we felt slightly exposed.
That you could invite the FBI over and they would struggle to find our prints.
That perhaps we needed sunglasses on to look at each other.
It was just so gosh dang clean.
Every time I walk inside, I am delighted.
Which can only mean one thing. Unexpectedly, and somewhat weirdly, Windows are my Number 14 Happinesses.
We never could have predicted such a thing.