The Cart

The cart was a double-decker round red metal number we wheeled in and out of the kitchen, conveying stacks of aluminum tumblers, melamine plates, heavy bowls of potato salad, and cold cuts out to the screened porch, or trundling iceberg, wan tomatoes, and “fried” chicken (which Mom shook in a paper bag with seasoned flour and baked before “Shake and Bake” was a gleam in Kraft’s eye) over the bumpy carpet into the sunroom for a Sunday dinner watching Walter Cronkite on The Twentieth Century.

This workhorse was swung around by two or three children with one or two riders from time to time, though I swore not to tell. The cart’s real moment of glory was rolling the Thanksgiving Turkey to the watering mouths in the dining room.

After years of use, though, it looked like a beat-up old truck—chipped, scratched, and badly in need of a coat of paint.

I would occasionally take such matters into my own hands. I couldn’t repair a shower, but I could refinish a table. Browsing at Costello’s hardware, paging through wallpaper books, handling tools, and smelling fresh paint afforded joy not far from that of baking. To say nothing of the transformative properties of Contact paper.

One thrilling day at Costello’s, I see Contact has come out with plastic adhesive squares that mimic the look of tiny ceramic tiles. I buy a few packages, take them home, and stick them up in our dingy half-bath. A thrilling renovation!

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It is never pointed out to me that design is best done in stages—work it out on paper, get it the way you want it, and then paint your surface, so I’m a seat-of the-pants gal.

•••

I apply a bright yellow basecoat to cheer up the cart. Then, inspired by Aunt Irene and Uncle Harry’s Mexican postcards, I paint a burro pulling a colorful cart of fruits and vegetables. He sports a jaunty sombrero. It’s cute and cart-appropriate yet totally dissatisfies me. Don’t know what I want, but it isn’t this.

I repaint the whole thing white and consider my new blank slate. Pictures float to consciousness. I grab my little cans of red, brown, blue.

Under my hand appear the following objects, swirling around the blank center: a four-inch tube of Cherries in the Snow lipstick, a hand mirror, a fluffy powder puff, a brimming atomizer, and a pair of red high heels. That’s more like it.

Then, right in the middle, I paint the pièce de résistance: a waltzing couple, she in dreamy blue dress and bright red lips, he in brown suit and dashing brown pompadour. Oh, how graceful they are! How happy waltzing in each other’s arms, emitting little musical notes. Yes, this will do nicely indeed.

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While we have our scars and struggles, such a thing was tolerated in our house. No one ever said what’s your adolescent fantasy doing on our kitchen cart? Repaint that! If my parents winced at the naked vulnerability shown by their budding chubby daughter, they were kind enough not to say anything. In fact, nobody made anything of it. It just kept making those trips to the screen porch, the sunroom, the dining room table, the waltzing couple warming the turkey from below.