Lovie, I shall never forget you.

When I was a little girl, I had a blankie. A lovie. It was lime green, it had a hand quilted cat in the middle, and even more important, it had picos at the edges. Little triangles that looked like the back bone of a Stegosaurus. I loved this blanket. I treasured this blankie. I took it everywhere, especially to the babysitters.

My mom worked for an established candy factory at the time. She would come home from work and smell wonderfully like chocolate. Oh how I loved to visit her at work. We would walk out of the place with a chocolate reject, or a bag of popcorn, or an ice cream cone. As much as I loved my dark cherry chocolates, my billy mints, or the homemade ice cream, I loved my blankie more.

Well, there was this one time that Mom dropped me off at the babysitters, and for some reason, I left my blankie in the car. I didn't' notice the missing lovie until it was nap time at the baby sitters house. (note: baby sitter was a mean old woman with extreme arthritis. Her fingers were deformed and she smelled of some kind of pain reliever cream) I didn't have it for my nap. I remember throwing a fit, and being really upset that I couldn't snuggle. Now, you might think me a little bit of a pill, but this babysitter scared the begeebies out of me. And when you are a kid, the most ordinary things have super powers. Like my blankie. I couldn't protect myself without the green safety wrap from my blankie.

Although I had forgotten to take it to the sitters, my mom for some odd reason, took it into the candy factory with her. She worked in this huge room where she would roll out the centers. There were these two big barrels of melting chocolate in there. The pure stuff. She had stuffed the blanket on a shelf while she worked making divine treats.

Think of my surprise, after mom got home from work that day, and my misplaced blankie smelled just like mom. Just like the candy factory. It truly was love.

Of course, as all these stories go, my blankie disappeared one day. I went to school one morning, it was there, I came home, it was gone. I cried. I thought I had lost it. I looked in my Mickey mouse toy box, under my bunk bed, down in the dreaded basement laundry room. Nothing. It was no where to be found. I grieved for my favorite blankie for a week. Tears of utter abandonment. I kept grieving for a lifetime. Of course in kid years a lifetime equals about 2 months... give or take.. I kept up my search during these summer months, each time the search getting less intense. Soon I didn't look anymore, I just wished.

Eventually, I forgot about my blankie. It was hard to remember the exact color it was, or the feel of the fabric between my fingers. I had other super hero blankets, although none were as wonderful as my prized green lovie.

Then one day, something unexpected happened. My dear sweet chocolate mom was dusting. I noticed that her rag was a torn up something, her dirty dust rag looked too familiar. It, of course, was my blankie. My sweet blankie was now a ragged, torn up, cleaning tool. Filthy with dust and pledge.I never trusted her again. At least in the promised words of a 7 year old.

To this day, the smell of pledge and a dirty rag always break my heart. Is it any wonder that I refuse to dust my own home??