BY CATHERINE DOOK
The Seat
My
husband John and I have the ambition to some day gun it across the
American border in our 1979 Execuvan looking so respectable that Homeland Security won’t shoot at us. Now to be fair, Homeland Security
has never shot at us. We have not, in fact, ever driven across the border into the States, unless you count that time in 1976 when I went to Buffalo on a bus for a university pub-crawl. But 40 years later John and I were planning a road trip through Washington and Oregon to California. “Darling,” I said, “I’m a little concerned
about the state of the carpet in our van.” “What?” John said. “Not only is it
original shag carpet, but we had it steam- cleaned last summer.” “It smells.” My voice was sulky. “Rome wasn’t cleaned in a day,” John
replied. “Tat carpet was manufactured the same year the Sony Walkman was invented. Have some respect.” “And the upholstery!” Scorn dripped
from my words like grease from a two- dollar hamburger. “I didn’t want to ask the steam cleaner
to clean those two front seatcovers,” John said simply, “for fear they’d disintegrate into a little puddle of dust.” “Tey might have,” I agreed, and I let
the conversation drop. Te two front bucket seats were still
comfortable, but they were a sort of melded mess of decaying foam and torn brown and beige plaid horrible to contemplate. True, the hues of brown and beige coordinated perfectly with the ‘70s dingy’ colour scheme of the rest of the van – the dark pressed-wood cupboard
26 RVT 140 • MARCH/APRIL 2011 Covers
doors, the beige shag carpet creeping up the walls, the tasteful Formica fake wood panels glued onto the ceiling – but 30 years aſter the original decorator had so offended public morality, anything clean would be an improvement. Two years before I’d found a remnant
of upholstery fabric in a tasteful shade of maroon in a thriſt store and I’d re- covered the worst bucket seat, the one in the rear of the van, but when I suggested to John that I look for other fabric and redo the front seats, John had complained it would ‘look funny.’ At those words, my jaw fell open.
On a good day, with the rank amateur- upholstering job I’d done on the rear seat, the van still looked like a pile of junk. Naturally I’d argued for awhile but John had then recently paid good money to replace one ragged nether edge of the chassis with a sheet of black spray-painted aluminum, and he was temporarily image-conscious. I was prepared to wait a year or two for this extraordinary snobbery to dissipate – like an oil spill – but before it did, there occurred a serendipitous event shocking in its impact. I was browsing through a thriſt store
on the far end of town with a happy alpha-wave buzz running though my brain (nothing releases endorphins like a good ramble through a second-hand shop) when I was suddenly slapped into consciousness by the sight of a large untidy stack of upholstery fabric, identical to the fabric with which I’d reupholstered the rear bucket seat of our Execuvan two summers earlier. Tere it was – as maroon as a tropical sky at dusk, as new as fresh-baked bread, and
as similar as the Dionne Quintuplets. Not only that, there was sufficient of it (at least to my untrained eye) to re-cover both front seats. I stood paralyzed with joy. John might balk at mismatched seatcovers, but surely he wouldn’t object to identical ones. Passing over the obvious fact that maroon seats would clash horribly with the 70s beige and brown décor of the Execuvan interior, and the seatcover I’d already refurbished stuck out like a very odd, blackberry- stained thumb indeed, the status of our prized holiday van was about to be drop- kicked from ‘disreputable’ to ‘weird.’ In my mind’s eye I could see Homeland Security greet us at Customs with smiling faces and best wishes for our prosperity and happiness. “Twenty dollars,” the storeowner said,
running a practiced eye over the pile of old boots, CDs and upholstery fabric I’d placed on his countertop. “Tis is for furniture, you know?” he asked, liſting a maroon handful with a puzzled look on his face. Kim knows we live onboard our sailing vessel, and he couldn’t imagine what I’d do with yards of dusty upholstery fabric cut into uneven lengths. “Yes, thanks,” I said, trying to look
casual. Aſter the price has been quoted, it is best to not betray too much excitement lest Kim realize the value of the treasure leaving his store. Ten clutching two ragged plastic
bags, I escaped before he could change his mind. At home I unfolded the fabric before
the astonished eyes of my husband. “An exact match!” John exclaimed.
“How did you do that?” “Different thriſt stores, two years
apart,” I told him. “I don’t know.” Now, on the occasion of redoing the
first bucket seat cover, I was handicapped by a lack of skill so profound in its depth, width and breadth, that a more skilled seamstress would have despaired and hired a professional. But I, blinded by optimism and the knowledge that stylistically we had nothing to lose, felt keenly that all I lacked was Walmart Bristol board with which to make a pattern, and a foot-long upholstery needle. How I lusted aſter a professional needle! Last time, using pliers, a hammer and a darning needle, I’d fought the job
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