The Tao of Martha (23 page)

I bring everything up to my office and consult the
Homekeeping
book. “Okay, Martha, baby, lay it on me,” I say.

And that’s when I discover that Martha has no advice other than using fabric tape. What? Eight hundred pages of text and all she can suggest is
fabric tape
? I don’t even know what fabric tape is, let alone understand how to operate it in regard to a duvet.

Damn it! First her July calendar and now this? I can’t believe it. This is how I felt the first time I ever saw one of my teachers in the grocery store, all odd and disconcerted.

No, no, this won’t do
at all
!

So it looks like I have to figure out how to stuff this damned thing myself.

As I unwrap the packaging, I realize that my singular goal in life is to someday have someone stuff my duvet covers for me. We used to have the house professionally cleaned, but then, once I began the Martha project in earnest, I figured I’d learn enough tips and tricks to maintain the house on my own. Thus far, I have.

I’ve started to clean wall-to-wall, meaning I begin in one corner of the room and work my way around, tackling everything in my path. For example, when I tidy the kitchen, I initiate the cleaning sequence at the counter where the mail accumulates. I sort and put all those items away, then spray the granite, before moving clockwise to wipe the wall of cabinets. I proceed around to the island for more disinfecting and organizing, finally finishing with the breakfast area. This way I move with a purpose and I don’t have to rearrange items to wipe under them. Before I had a system, I’d be distracted by all the different components, but by proceeding in a linear fashion, I can hit everything without getting sidetracked.

In retrospect, my chambermaid job would have been far easier if I’d read Martha back then, but I was a lot more interested in meeting hot guys from Tufts. Oh, well.

The point is, my house has stayed orderly even though I’m doing everything myself.

I suspect this is largely because I’ve lowered my own standards in regard to cleanliness.

Whatever.

Anyway, I spread the duvet across the bed, and immediately wet dogs burst into my office to dance all over it. I see they’ve been swimming, like, thirty seconds ago. Maisy’s still really just wading into the pool to get a drink, but wet is wet.

I shoo them out, shutting my office door behind them. Maisy keeps snorting under the door while Loki nudges the doorknob. I hear Libby take off after a cat, because she has the attention span of a hummingbird.

I lay out the duvet again and position the opening at the bottom over my head. Then I grab the edges of the comforter and begin to tunnel toward the back. The temperature inside my office is approximately seventy-four degrees, but inside this duvet, it’s more like twenty-eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit, which would be superconvenient if I were trying to melt structural steel.

I shove and bunch and sweat, and when I believe I have everything situated, I exit the duvet’s birth canal. Grasping the comforter at two corners, I shake it out, hoping everything will fall into place.

Everything does not fall into place. In fact, everything is skewed. The dimensions of the comforter versus that of the duvet are diametrically opposed. Why? Why is this? Why aren’t the damn duvets shaped like the comforters? Why is there no standard? Beds are standard sizes so sheets can fit, so why hasn’t anyone come up with a benchmark in regard to duvets and fillers? How much easier would that make everyone’s lives? Although I’m prone to favor smaller government, I would GLADLY support a National Bureau of Ensuring Shit Fits Properly.

I rip out the comforter and turn the whole thing ninety degrees to the left before starting the process again. I keep a death grip on the end of the comforter, guiding it through the Amazonian rain forest that is the inside of the duvet. Once I’m in the belly of this thing, I’m aggravated because there are all these long strings hanging down on the seams. Way to make the inside of your product raggedy,
Pottery Barn
. Sheesh.

Before I can do anything else, I have to immediately remove my shirt or else I will pass out, and I’m not kidding. Rivulets of perspiration roll down my back, and my ponytail is practically saturated. All the stupid strings are tickling my neck and I keep thinking they’re ticks, leading me to have a series of mini heart attacks.

I have to hold open the bottom part to get a breath of air, and that’s when I notice that there’s a binder clip on my floor.

Wait a minute. Could that work? What if I were to clip the comforter to the duvet with the binder before I shake it all out? Yes! Genius!

But before I can do that, I have to line up the rest of the comforter. By now, I’ve generated so much heat inside the duvet that my whole office is roasting. I figure the most expedient thing is to remove my pants, too, because I’m simply not built for heat.

So I’m pretty much scuba diving inside the covers when all the exertion causes me to—how do I say this delicately?—honk, poot, step on a duck. I’ve just managed to Dutch-oven myself. I suddenly, deeply regret having consumed antique seafood salad at lunch. Granted, I noticed my lunch was long past its first blush of youth, but at eleven dollars a pound, I wasn’t about to waste it.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

Breathing through my mouth, I manage to position everything in place, and I’m able to extricate myself once and for all. Still undressed, I grab my box of binder clips and secure the entire north end of the operation. Then I stand back and give the bedding a vigorous shake and…success! Everything falls into place! Cheese cutting be damned, this duvet is filled perfectly and aligned exactly as it should be!

I’m cheering and jumping around when Fletch enters my office. I’m not sure what specifically is the most off-putting—the prolific sweat, the unexpected underpants, or the fetid fug of indigestible Neptune salad. Openmouthed, he gawps at me until I say, “Got that duvet thing worked out.”

He nods and backs out of the room, without ever having said a word. The dogs come dashing in the open door and immediately hop on all my hard work.

From her spot on the edge of the bed, Maisy’s nose wriggles before she eyes me warily, clearly communicating, “This is what shame smells like.”

Yet this is a victory. Plus, for the first time I feel like I out-Martha’d Martha. That’s not only cause for celebration, but also another revelation in the lately dormant Tao: The universe can be built only once a proper foundation is laid.

Had I not been so intent on learning Martha’s processes, I’d have never freestyled my duvet solution. I feel like I should write in to
Living
and tell them that I’ve discovered the right way to stuff a duvet.

Maybe this is the X factor for which I’ve been searching?

Maybe this is my opportunity to share my own bit of Martha-inspired breakthrough with the world!

Yes!!

But first I’ll get dressed.

I’m mentally composing my Duvet Treatise when it occurs to me that all those stupid strings may have served a purpose. I pull up Potterybarn.com and I read the description of my new bedding:

“Duvet cover has interior ties and a hidden button closure.”

Wait, are interior ties the same thing as fabric tape?

According to MarthaStewart.com, yes. Yes, they are.

Turns out all I needed to do was use the flappy strings to truss the comforter into place,
exactly as the
Homekeeping
manual instructed
.

Maisy watches me as I huff and sigh. “Sweetie, your mummy is a dummy.” I sit down next to her and plant a kiss on her wide, flat head. “But at least the bed looks pretty now.”

In response, she thumps her tail and practically nods and says, “So there’s that.”

I
’m at lunch with the girls when the call comes in.

I knew what would happen next was coming, but I didn’t think it would be today.

On the other end of the line, Fletch is understandably upset.

“One minute everything was fine, and the next…I can’t…It’s just…”

“It’ll be okay, honey. I’ll deal with it when I get home.”

Tracey’s, Gina’s, and Stacey’s eyes are trained on me when I hang up.

Stacey puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Do you have to go?”

“What’s wrong?” Tracey asks, voice full of concern. “Did something happen with Maisy?”

Oh, my God, they think…“What? No! I’m so sorry; she’s good. A little tired, but not so much that she’s not still bossy. That’s not why he called. Remember when I told you guys about One Kings Lane? And how my card expired and I was waiting for a couple of shipments? Apparently everything arrived today.”

One of the reasons I’m such a fan is because OKL is ultracareful with breakables. The first thing I bought was this little ceramic bird, maybe the size of my fist, and they shipped it in a box that was easily twenty-four inches wide and twelve inches high.

“So there’s a lot?” Gina asked.

I laugh, imagining Fletch’s distress. “He says there’s a tower of boxes outside the front door that’s about five feet high by six feet wide. He can’t get out the door. He said he looked outside and saw a sea of brown—he thought we were having a zombie apocalypse.”

“Is he disappointed?” Stacey queries.

“Probably.”

We’re all still chuckling when our regular waiter comes up to take our order.

“Ladies ready?” he asks, folding his hands behind his back. I’m perpetually stressed out when the waiter doesn’t write anything down, despite the fact that, A) we get the same lunch every single week, and B) they’ve yet to not deliver everything we order. But the not noting the order—why is this a thing everywhere now? I hate this. Yes, yes, we’re all impressed that you remember that Stacey likes her eggs scrambled well-done, her bacon burned, and fruit instead of potatoes, and that I prefer my bacon floppy as opposed to crispy. If you’re my server, please just humor me and take a note, okay? You don’t even have to give it to the kitchen. Otherwise, I’m going to spend the next twenty minutes obsessing over your memorization skills.

“I’m going to have the breakfast burrito, but please hold the avocado,” Gina says.

“Oh, are you allergic?” the waiter asks. “Because I’m allergic. Can’t have avocados at all, even avocado oil.” See? This is why I get anxious when he doesn’t jot down what we want. Every damn week he forgets that he’s told us all about the avocado thing.

As our waiter launches into his tale of avocado woe, he doesn’t even notice that we’re all laughing into our napkins.

Sometimes happiness is a warm puppy, sometimes it’s Fletch’s beard, and sometimes?

Sometimes happiness takes the form of a flatulent waiter.

P.S. I love my room makeover.

T
HE
A
MBIEN
D
IARIES

T
he top five best things that ever happened to me in my life list out something like this:

Meeting Fletch—
Self-explanatory.

Adopting Maisy
—Again, self-explanatory.

Deciding to Pursue a Writing Career in Lieu of Being a Corporate Drone—
Which pretty much changed everything. (Please refer to
Bitter Is the New Black
with any specific questions about the process.)