So this weekend little e and I escaped to the city so DH and a friend could put in a closet in one of our upstairs bedrooms. It’s our mission to move up there because the rooms are nicer, the light is better and little e can have her own room instead of her crib taking up most of my office.

I arrived home to find a fully framed-in, drywalled closet, like magic. My role was to handle the childcare for 48 hours, so I definitely got the best part of the deal.

Closet pre-drywall

But here’s the best bit: while taking out a cabinet, DH discovered several ancient artifacts. The house was build around 1910 and we think renovations to the upper floor happened between the 20s and 50s, which explains these:

The big paper is some kind of newsletter from 1957 which starts by talking about some annual general meeting and then goes into numerous fifties-style jokes. –Oh, you want to hear one? Swell!

“A woman stormed into the manager’s office in a New York department store and demanded her money back.

‘The dress I bought has moth holes in it,” she said. ‘The sales clerk says there’s nothing she can do.’

‘She’s right,’ said the manager.

‘But what about the notice right on the sales slip–money cheerfully returned if not satisfactory?’

‘Sure,’ said the manager. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with your money.'”

But below is my favourite artifact–I mean, what? I’m itching to take it down to the city archives to find out what it means and when exactly it’s from.

And isn’t this the most horrible and wonderful linoleum you’ve ever seen?

I can’t contain my glee when things like this happen. I thought for a while I’d like to be an archaeologist (still would in my dreams), and this is as close as I’ll probably get. Because isn’t that what we want as writers–perfect moments captured in time? Maybe I wanted to be an archaeologist because I wanted to discover stories. As a writer I get to do that too, just not by digging in the ground. You may recall my fondness for writing prompts (sorry, it’s the teacher and writing student in me). Isn’t this discovery of frozen history the raddest writing prompt ever? Maybe bested by the dog magazine, gun cleaner and box of bullets we found in the attic two years ago, but anyway–still amazing! If I let my mind wander, I can hear the conversation that went on while picking out that lino. Likely by a couple named Bert and Mabel. I better go write it down…

XO

Ria