The Napkin

Jules was so broke last week she ran out of toilet paper.

I had just returned from the grocery store bringing her milk and bread and toilet paper. My dear husband with the bad back was still hammering away (5 hours) in the bathroom replacing the flooring, the commode, etc. He was finishing up so I stayed to chat, and she says: “Last night, we were out of toilet paper. I was searching around the house, and ran across this box with small white napkins: my wedding napkins that have our name and date. I figured: Why not?”

She says she handed them into her son. Suddenly he calls out: Mom, were you married on June 4, 1989? She said she started to laugh, and then telling me, she starts to laugh, and laugh, and we are both laughing, and wiping out eyes, and then we slow down a bit, and then we start up again and can’t stop laughing, the irony is so perfect. It is a precious memory.

And the bathroom is fixed, so she can rent out a room, using the deposit to pay the garage, to get her car out of hock, and get a job, and pay bills - and buy toilet paper.