Lost Tricks

Today, I decided to do an extra-long workout at the Y as a preemptive way of coping with Thanksgiving dinner. I used the exercise bike for 20 minutes and then stopped by the bathroom before my ballet class.

In the bathroom, though, I ran into problems: one end of the drawstring on my yoga pants slipped into my waistband. I looked down in horror. Unless I was able to get the drawstring out and tie it, I'd have to skip dance class; I couldn't very well dance with my pants falling down.

I fiddled with the string for a while in the locker room, feeling for it beneath the fabric and trying to pull it out, but I couldn't get a good enough grip on the end to thread it through the eye. An old woman walked by and made a sympathetic comment. As a last resort, I asked her, "You wouldn't happen to have a safety pin, would you?"

And she did. She went to her purse and pulled out a chain of them. With the point, I was able to get the string and pull it through. I thanked her profusely.

In my ballet class, one woman told me, "I buy a lot of vintage purses, and you know, they all have a string of safety pins pinned to the lining. I think all old women do that."

I was impressed. We usually have one safety pin in the entire house, in the depths of a desk or a junk drawer--and we can never find it when we need it. What a good idea to keep a string of them with you at all times! I started wondering--how did all those women learn to do it? Did they watch their mothers or their friends? What made everybody stop? Do Americans pin things less these days? What other tricks for coping with daily life have we lost?

Photo by ~K~ on flickr.com. (Check out her photo stream--she has some neat pictures!)