Autumn 'Sneaks Right In'--'Despite' Citronella Candle

“Do you know we are the only house in the neighborhood with a citronella candle still on the front porch?” I was asked Halloween week.

For so many months while we were still swimming and camping and bicycling, I kept thinking of the house as just a very nice place to stop by and do laundry.

Fall sneaked right in, however, wand the leaves tracked into the living room were almost as deep as the yard. It was time to “take stock.”

I prefer the eclectic approach.

First I went out and bought three gorgeous home decorating magazines boasting the newest in home entertaining ideas. Inspiration and motivation. (But shrimp creole for 40?)

Second, I took two aspirin and a good hard look at the interior of the house. In that order.

Third, I cashed in all my coupons on new cleaning miracle detergents. (Believe me, a miracle I needed!)

At this point, the kids disappeared from my life, reappearing systematically at mealtimes.

During the summer the bird and dog had decided the house belonged to them, and we were merely tenants.

“Saturday Night” (a parakeet with the body of a bird and the mentality of a B-52) regularly flew into the hair of anyone approaching the dining room and sampled all the house plants. The dog rearranged all the contents of one deep closet to suit herself and in a gargantuan effort, dragged throw rugs from one roof to another.

The crack in the bedroom wall no longer looked “interesting.”

The tennis balls and the dust balls in the vestibule began a 30-day war.

The living room draperies began to scream, “Disadvantaged!”

I began to spend less time reading the new books in the library and more time in the supermarket reading labels on rug shampoos.

“Don’t put ashes in that ashtray!” I snapped.

“The coffee cups are dirty,” the Baron replied.

“Mom, the calendar still says August!” one of the kids shouted.

“Leave the calendar alone,” I snarled.

My personal decorating theory is called “Vague Theory.” It goes hand in hand in my early style of furnishings known as “Almost Rummage Sale.”

The “Vague Theory” means if you read it is acceptable to mix modern with traditional it is perfectly all right to keep roller skates in the fireplace.

“Vague Theory” proponents have been known to lose a coffee table on days when the magazine and paper supply is heavy.

Vague theorists may have the same dinner table centerpiece for years.

They have entire basements filled with empty oatmeal boxes and coffee cans they’re going to “fill up” someday.

They keep the hardboiled eggs with the uncooked eggs on the same shelf in the refrigerator.

They are the people to whom all the neighbors send stray cats and lost dogs. (If our marriage ever breaks up it will be over one more "confounded lost dog.")

We just muddle along, growing ivy in old sneakers, until one day some upstart of a kid mentions citronella candles on the front porch.

“I think there is a squirrel in the attic,”  frets the Baron.

“Really? What is his name?” I ask.

The Baron left in a huff. I decided David Ruben could sell more books if he called them something like “Any Woman Can Learn to Live with a Husband.” I decided Ralph Nader ought to investigate directions on boxtops. I decided to write Bess Myerson and ask her if it’s true she never eats hamburgers.

I wandered around the backyard. There on a tall stem was one tiny rosebud bending in the wind, too dumb to fall off and too stubborn to freeze. I renamed the bush the “Vague Rose."
Then I lighted the citronella candle and huddled on the front porch. But it was too cold. Besides there was no place to sit down. Some dope had put away the porch furniture.

--November 14, 1972