Fibrous Frippery

I let people walk all over me. I was pretty much made that way, so I'm just being fully transparent here. People talk about nature or nurture, but the truth is, this is so embedded in every fiber of who I am, I would be hard pressed to say one way or the other.

Back in the day, I used to be able to spring back, after a tough day; dust myself off; shake out the stiffness; and still look darn good. Thank you very much. These days, though, my age is really starting to show. I just can't absorb as much as I used to.

Rainy days are the worst. The kids traipse in an endless litany of mud, dirt, and water. Outside toys, dripping all over, are just dropped and may sit there for days if I don’t find a burst of energy to toss them into the toy box in the corner. The shoes really annoy me now. They are so much more destructive than stocking feet.

I do love the quiet evenings when we all relax and watch TV together. That’s my favorite time. It is so nice to feel like a part of the family.

My name is Nain. I am a handmade, pure silk, original Persian rug. I come from the best rug maker in the world.  Mind you, I am not just any Persian rug. I am the center-piece of life here in the Rutgers household. I was a wedding gift -- the best gift they received, if I do say so myself. Not only am I beautiful, I am well-made, durable, and the truth is I am so amazing that I will be here to welcome the grand kids and the great grand kids. 

I thought my “every fiber of who I am” reference was pretty clever. Right? Again, if I do say so myself. 

Oh! Here they come! I am excited that they are back, but a bit nervous too. My excitement is always tempered with a bit of fear. They are young kids still, so I often expect the worst. It is so much better to be prepared.

“Hi, Tommy, Mary, John, and Susan!” I shout at the top of my lungs as the door flies open. There is no response. There never is, of course, but I don’t expect one anymore. I always hope that subliminally they notice. Like a telepathic thing.

Tommy and Mary drop their backpacks on the entryway credenza, chattering non-stop. They are 8 and 10. We rugs are quite good with judging age. A little scan of the wear and tear, and a tug on a few fibers and we can usually nail the age, give or take a month. I was here when they were born, so I have a little advantage. They used to crawl across me all day long. I have buffered many falls as they were learning to walk.

“Don’t forget your shoes,” I hear Susan reminding the children.

Ha! They are taking off their shoes! That is new. I am elated, beside myself with joy, bursting with happiness. It doesn’t get any better than this. 

Instead of coming over to me and plopping on the couch, they gather around their dad. I am too curious to be offended. The kids reach out, touching something cradled in his arms. What is John holding? Surreptitiously I lift a corner trying to see what it is that is wriggling so excitedly.

Then I hear it.

A high-pitched "Yelp!" Then another!

I swear, the color drained from my fibers and a rush of red flew through my weave. A puppy!

As a toddler, barely out of the dye vats, I was warned about this by an old codger who looked like he had had enough of life. The old guy had stared at me with all the intensity of a tiger sizing up its prey and in the most gravelly voice I ever heard warned me. “It destroys you, one pee, one turd at a time until your fibers reek with the odor and your life as a rug is over.” He cleared his throat. “Don’t let it happen, kid,” he pleaded and then broke into an uncontrollable cough, spewing dust and bits of Cheerios on the floor in front of me.

I quivered and promised the old man that I would never let that happen.

The kids giggle and fawn over it. Do they not realize that this is a very serious death threat? I am aghast, appalled, and desperately pleading with the great weaver in the sky to say it wasn’t so. I tighten my weave in self-protection, crossing my fibers that they wouldn’t let it near me.

My wish was granted.

“Now, now, kids. Give the puppy a bit of space. This is all new for him and I think he might be a bit frightened,” John motions the kids to step back. “We’ll get his new home set up in the kitchen; get him some food and water; and maybe you can take him outside to play a little later.”

‘Yes! Yes! Yes!” they chant together. 

“I’ll get the food,” Tommy heads toward the door to get the dog food out of the car.

“I’ll get his bed,” Mary follows Tommy out the door.

John walks to the kitchen with the dog in his arm. “I’ll go get the child's gate.” Susan gives him a peck on the cheek and heads down to the basement where presumably the old gate they had used for Tommy and Mary is stored.

What a relief.  The kitchen is out of sight and nowhere near my precious fibers. 

The family spends the entire evening with the puppy. I hear giggles, laughter, and an occasional bark. They must have purchased a ball for him, because I hear one bouncing across the kitchen floor followed by the scrape and scratch of paws. At one point the back door opens and closes, and I hope with every thread that the animal successfully empties its bowels and bladder.

As the evening wears on, the play becomes less frenetic and eventually everyone slinks quietly out of the kitchen, long after the sun had set. 

“Time for the two of you to head to bed,” Susan whispers. “There will be plenty of time to play tomorrow.”

Tommy and Mary hug their parents. “Thank you so much, Mom and Dad,” Mary says. “Goodnight.”

“We promise to take care of him.” Tommy chimes in. “Goodnight.”

John & Susan sit on the couch, each heaving a sigh. “It’s nice to see the kids so happy.” John comments.

“Yeah,” she responds. “I think you like the puppy as much as they did.”

“Guilty as charged.” He laughs and puts his arm around her, reaching for the remote at the same time.

It is a lovely quiet evening of watching TV together. The puppy is locked in the kitchen, and I am thoroughly enjoying this time before John and Mary eventually join the kids upstairs.

I stretch my fibers and settle in for the night. The silence in the house is the perfect ambiance for me to nod off.

Sometime during the night, I hear a crash so loud that I almost knock over the planter from its perch on the coffee table. I look around desperately trying to find the source of the noise. And then I see it.

The gate.

The puppy had knocked over the gate and is heading straight toward me. I freeze. My life flashes before my eyes. OK, not exactly my life, but there I am on the verge of the worst possible scenario, my life hanging in the balance, with no possible defense. I do what I can. I lift my corner just a bit, merely to discourage the creature from running across me. He trips and face plants. The responding “yelp” is like music to my ears. OK. That should make him go around.

The dog, however, is anything but compliant. In seconds, he recovers and proceeds straight across me as if I hadn’t just sent a very clear message. His paws bouncing on top of me might have tickled, if I wasn't completely terrified. But they feel like metal blades tearing through me like a novice piercing the burlap target as he swings his sword recklessly to impress his master.

I tighten my weaves, trying to bouncing him off like a toy, but nothing works. He finally stops, giving my poor body a rest. Mere moments later, though, I feel the warm invasive trickle and then the smell permeates my nose.  I scream, desperate for someone to help. But the only response is silence. Then it happens -- the dreaded turd. Oh Master Weaver! The smell is unbearable.

After desecrating my being, the creature has the audacity to curl up and fall asleep.

I scream the rest of the night, pounding my corners on the wood floor, making every noise a rug can make. Finally, as the morning sun peaks through the window curtains, John and Susan respond. Thank goodness. I plea for them to remove the dog and to wipe the stench from me.

“Oh, no,” John rushes to pick up the puppy. “No, no, no.” He carries the dog, holding him out in front of him, back to the kitchen and out the back door

But, what about me? I scream. Someone please help me. I need a doctor, a surgeon, and master cleaner. My life is over!

Susan bends down to inspect the damage. “We are really going to have to get him housebroken,” she laments. 

Darn right, I am thinking. Your house will definitely be completely broken with that thing here. Broken, filthy, ugly. I am relieved that she understands. It won’t be long, I hope, before that cretin is gone and I can get back to being my relaxed, charming self.

She follows John into the kitchen and I hear the water running. The back door opens and closes and I hear them talking. It sounds like John left the puppy outside in the yard. Good! I can’t quite hear everything, just snippets. Dog… rug… damage… and that broken house word again.

They come back into the living room together and stand over me assessing the damage. Susan kneels and begins to carefully treat my fibers to a bath and soft massage. “I don’t know if I am going to be able to get this smell out” I hear her say. I panic. Please! Please! Get it out! But no matter how tenderly she treats me or how long she cleans, I can still smell it.

Later that day, once the kids had been sent off to school and the puppy tucked away in a reinforced, sealed off kitchen, they come to me with a large plastic sleeve.

They are rolling me up! Discarding me! Sending me to the great loom in the sky! I am horrified. I kick and spit as they tumble me end over end. I manage to unroll a section when they lift me to slide into the plastic sleeve. I am not going without a fight. Despite my efforts at remaining unrolled, John eventually re-rolls me and Susan ties a rope around me to keep me from unrolling. I bend in half so they can’t fit me into the sleeve. But it is futile. I am history. The dog has won.

I feel them lifting me and taking me outside. All I can smell is the urine and poop, magnified by the plastic encasement. I can’t breathe! I gasp and promptly pass out.

I am jarred awake as someone unceremoniously drops me on a hard concrete floor. This is it -- the end of the line. I wait for my fate to unravel and prepare myself. I sit for hours contemplating the universe, dreaming of fresh air. Would my life now flash before my eyes? Is this all there was? What is my life's purpose?  I am too young to die! This is so unfair!

I am blinded by a glaring light as the plastic sleeve is cut off me. “Ha! Look at the old man!” I heard some young rug taunt. “Wow, he reeks,” says another. How dare they? I’m not old! I’m still very young! I have a lot of life left in me.

And what were these brats doing invading my afterlife journey?

I slowly open an eye, squinting against the light. To my amazement, I am back at the factory where I had been born. So much has changed though. The youngsters look so weird in their geometric and a-symmetric designs. There are so many different sizes and the colors are so bright. The smell of the place is the same though. I would recognize the smell of a dye vat from miles away.

I look at the brats who had disrespected me. “Well,” I say turning to look at them with a glare all my own. “Let me warn you. You have much of life to experience, but if you ever run into a DOG,” I growl menacingly, ”you will be ruined – one pee, one turd at a time.” I clear my throat. “Whatever you do, don’t let that happen to you, kids”

I see the fear in their eyes They reply in unison, “Oh we won’t, sir.”

I sit there waiting, for what seemed like forever, drowning in my odor, waiting for the end. It was not until days later, I am dragged away into the next room. The same room the old codger had been dragged. The doors bang shut behind me and I look around. My mouth hits the floor. Old rugs hang from the rafters dripping water, looking like they had just come out of the loom. Was I in rug heaven?

All at once, I feel the cool soothing touch of a hose, dousing me with water. Soapy water infiltrates my fibers and I feel years of dirt lift and be washed away. The water slides off me, dark as the night, smelling like the old codger. Was I really that dirty? I bask in the cleaning fountain for what seemed an eternity until the water runs clear and I look brand new. The heat of the dryer restores my bounce and gives new life to my colors. Then I am hung up in the rafters with the other rugs. We trade stories, laugh at our foibles, and lament our bad luck.

Once fully dried, I am taken down and rolled up again, but this time I don’t fight and don’t mind. There is no smell of urine or poop. There is just a smell of clean. They load me into a truck and drive me somewhere. I really don’t care where I’m going. I am just so happy to be clean. 

Inside the house, I feel familiar hands unrolling me and the familiar floor where I had lain for years. I am home. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Don’t worry, Nain.” I hear Susan say in a conspiratorial whisper as she pats me. “The dog’s been house-broken.”

I nearly flip. She is talking to me. I don’t know what the dog did, but it sounded like house-broken means he wasn’t going to pee on me again. I trust Susan and I know she really understands me, so I relax and stretch my fibers.

That evening as the family gathers to watch TV, I hear the click of the dog’s paws coming from the kitchen. I hold my breath as he patters across me, tickling me with his paws. This time, though, he curls up in a ball at the foot of the couch. With a relaxing sigh, I caress him in my newly cleaned fibers and rock him gently to sleep.