Uncle Crappy

Reading Burgh Baby’s account of the traumatic loss of a Dora sock and recent developments at home have prompted me to offer a confession here — I still have a bumma.

Or a blankie.

Or whatever they’re called in your house.

I was really attached to me bumma as a kid — in fact, I had two, a yellow one when I was very young, and a powder blue one that went everywhere with me until … that day.

The family isn’t sure exactly where “that day” took place, but it might have been at a hotel in Breezewood, at the start of one of those three-weeks-in-the-station wagon vacations. I remember what the hotel looked like — it was a two-story motor lodge kind of thing, and I remember looking out the door of our room up what seemed to be the steepest, greenest mountainside I had ever seen.

Maybe the scenery was distracting. Maybe the tight schedule we were keeping on the way to Florida or wherever it was made me hustle out the door without my blanket.

I don’t know the reason. I do know we were far enough down the road when I made the discovery that there was no way we were going back to retrieve my blanket. I know it was traumatic, and I’m sure I made it clear to everyone how upset I was, at least for a while.

And then I was blanketless.

Until just a few years ago, when The Wife — who was then The Girlfriend — brought some hospital blankets to whatever apartment we were sharing at the time. They’re a soft, woven cotton, cool on warm nights and awesome under a comforter during the winter. I loved them instantly.

I’m not sure when I started using one as a pillow, but for the last several years, that blanket has been a constant companion, traveling with us on vacations, weekend football trips — even, I think, on our honeymoon.

It’s been getting a bit threadbare recently — helped along, I’m sure, by washing it in hot water and bleach — and on its last trip through the washer, it occurred to me that it’s near the end of its life. I washed it with a couple of button-down shirts, which both ended up like mackerels in fishnets. I actually had to cut the blanket in a couple of places to extract the shirts.

It’s time for a new bumma. And that’s going to be kind of a challenge. I could buy them by the case, but I’m not sure what I’d do with 24 bummas. There are similar blankets at Target — but not quite the same thing. I’m going to look around a bit, in hopes that I find a suitable replacement before the current bumma dissolves into a pile of thread.

In the meantime, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Really.

Tags: domestic bliss, history, i'm an idiot