Where Things Used to Be

When my kids were little, we kept our vacuum cleaner in a lower kitchen cabinet, the one and only vacuum cleaner we ever owned. It was a Kenmore, turquoise canister model with attachments.

I can't recall how it died, but it did, as machines do.  Its storage cabinet became a catch-all where one might find an odd shoe or a week-old newspaper or a box of cereal.

For  the majority of years  in that house, we called that cabinet "Where the Vacuum Cleaner Used to Be." If we couldn't find something, one of us would say, "Try looking Where The Vacuum Cleaner Used to Be." Anything lost might be found where the ghost Kenmore used to be.  One of my children informed me that they still call it that when they visit their dad's house.

I wonder if my old dining chair is called "Where Mama used to sit."

Having lived in San Antonio since 1967,  I know most streets and highways here like old friends. Whenever I drive past places that used to be something else, I think, "That's where the pediatrician's office used to be" or "That burger place used to be a dress shop."  The San Pedro Piggy Wiggly was the record shop I was in the day Elvis died.

Today I was feeling much better and a friend invited me over for a visit.  On the way home, I stopped by the burger place that used to be a dress shop and got a bun-less burger for supper.  The kitchen used to be the dressing room. The owner came out and sat at my table and talked to me while I ate my burger right where racks of dresses used to stand.