The Isolation Journals - Day 50

Day 50!  The real and true halfway point of this now 100 day project.  Reaching day 15 felt monumental when that was the original halfway point, but now this is a deeply ingrained habit.  I hope when we are cut loose to fend for ourselves and the world tiptoes back into a slightly more urgent routine, that I continue to make space in my day for writing.  Having some structure and sense of accountability helps, but so does having no plans whatsoever for the foreseeable future so who knows.

Prompt:  Imagine you’re not home (already a leap) and a friend you don’t know well is staying in your house. This friend looks around at all your framed photos and trinkets and coffee table books but they stop at one object and can’t figure out why it’s on display. Maybe it’s a strange drawing or a plastic piece of fruit or a coaster with Elvis’s face on it. Write a little narrative essay explaining the backstory of this item and why it has meaning for you.

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Just this morning I pointed to the still and said to Andy, "We've missed a real opportunity.  We could have been making small-batch hand sanitizer this whole time."

Visitors to our apartment might gaze upon the miniature copper still displayed on the bottom shelf of the side table Andy built.  "Y'all moonshiners?  What does this make, a shot at a time?" they might ask.  Actually, no one has ever asked.  We didn't have a lot of visitors even before COVID.

But it is rather unusual.  In fact, I'm not even entirely clear on why we have it.  The story, as I understand it, is this: 

A couple Christmases back, my step-dad got a little baked and started paging through the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, as one does.  He ordered, among other things, a set of tilted wineglasses designed to fool with a drunk person's equilibrium, and a miniature copper still.  The still was meant to be a gift for my mom, whether for some kind of essential oil distilling hobby or just as an objet d'art, I cannot say.  At any rate, Chuck paid for one still, but due to a warehouse error, received two.  For some reason, the fine folks at Hammacher Schlemmer didn't seem to want the superfluous item returned to them.  Thus, Andy and I became the proud owners of this curious object of questionable provenance.

And now, I'm kicking myself.  Had it occurred to me two months ago to actually (figure out how to) use the still, I could have been a local hero!  Instead, it sits, shiny and dormant, full of untapped potential - a metaphor for our times:  Still.