Nothing Too Small

Another week, another round of hoovering. Only today I discovered that the dust bag was completely full, and thus it was time to remove it, take it outdoors and sift through the fluff to find Ringzilla's missing emerald eye. (As devoted readers may remember, Ringzilla lost an eye during my first month of stringent and energetic housework.)

Naturally I telephoned my husband, as I figured he would love to see a huge pile of dust, and I was correct, for he sped home to have a look at it. (A whole class of men are like that: they always want to see the fire or the gigantic spider or the unusually grotesque slug.) Frankly, I found the dust pile pretty disgusting. How can two little people and their friends generate that much dust and hair in so few months? And how could we track in so much gravel from the carriageway around the courtyard? I began to tear apart the dust mound and feel each chunk for hard bits, which always turned out to be gravel. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack! This was looking for a jewel in a dust pile! And there were worst things than gravel--like a sliver of glass and--ouch!--pine needles from Christmasses past.

"Shake it so the heavy stuff goes to the bottom," suggested B.A.

"I ripped open the bag at the bottom," I said, looking at the dusty horror.

"Did you pray to Saint Anthony?"

"Of course I prayed to Saint Anthony," I said, shaking the hairy, powdery lump. "But I think the emerald might be too small even for Saint Anthony."

And then I saw a green twinkle. I sifted through the gravel and found a blue-green chip of paint. My heart sank, but I sifted some more and---!

Twinkle, twinkle!

You know, there is nothing so green as an emerald twinkling away in a dust pile. B.A. ran away to the House's Conservation Lab with it clamped between his thumb and forefinger and returned with it in a tiny plastic zip-lock bag marked "Eye of Ringzilla".

I have since put Ringzilla in the bag, too. And the lessons we can take from this are A.) Don't wear emerald engagement rings when doing heavy housework; B.) Never give up on anything or anyone   important and C.) Nothing is too small for Saint Anthony.