The Iron-y

This year I insisted that we buy a new table cloth for our little table on our deck here in Italy. I was lucky to find one the right size (90 x 90 cm) at a local store without having to post my first born as a down payment. (Hey folks, this is Italy!)

I proudly spread my new purchase on our table and it was perfect fit. So far, so good. Ah, but several weeks later, being the clod that I am, I managed to spill some red wine on it. (Bad dog!) I fussed with it a bit with some Oxy-Clean but decided that it needed washing. No biggie!

After it was washed and dried (not in a dryer), it seemed to have gotten a little smaller; not a lot, just a little. What to do? Then, I hesitantly recommended that we iron the little sucker.

Let’s flash backwards a bit to 2003 when we first moved into our abode in Italy. Among the “must haves” that we purchased was a steam iron. At the time, I thought it was a fitting purchase in the land where everyone irons even their jock straps to excess.

In the 16 years since its purchase, our poor iron has been used only 3 or four times if memory serves me right. A decade or so ago, I boxed it up neatly and stuffed it into an armadio to be forever forgotten. The ironing board (also a must have) was also hidden away behind another armadio and all was forgotten until today.

The first thing we had to do was to locate the iron. No problem. My wife found it subito. It was in its original box and looked perfect when we re-opened it. The ironing board was another story. It had been sitting behind the end of an armadio at least since George Bush was president and become a tad dusty over a decade or so. I dutifully cleaned the chrome feet; people hereabouts love their chrome and it must be kept very shiny.

I plugged in the iron and let it come up to temperature after filling the reservoir with water. Okay, bene! But of course, there was little bene about it. At first it leaked a little water. I supposed it was normal after many years of it being unused. That was finally straightened out and then the fun began.

My wife started ironing in a fashion of which I dis-approved. After all, I had raised a child from infancy by myself and was an ironer supreme. My wife balked; she had ironed all of her life! (Well, not the last 16 years as it turns out.) We argued a bit about who had the greater talent. In the end she reluctantly ceded the ironing privileges to me and I finished the job neatly. Well, not so neatly. It seemed that I had forgotten much of the controls on this simple tool. But after a few goes, I got the steam working and finished the job. Tah-dah!

Having finished a meager task, I stared vacuously at the box which housed our treasure from the past. Then I noticed the thing that makes me the most nuts living in Italy; the length that it takes to say something simple. On the box, the product was described as “Ferro da stiro a vapore – Gulliver.” Four words instead of two to describe a “steam iron” and I’ll be damned if I know what “Gulliver” has to do with the model; maybe it was manufactured for travels.

Having bitten the bullet, I packed my nifty Gulliver back in its box, never to be seen again until certainly after my death. The ironing board has been restored to its original corner behind our armadio and all is right with the world. The Iron-y? That I am even writing about such a trivial incident!