If I get to my music lesson early, I pop into the op shops around Hamilton. There’s one, the Hunter Animal Watch Charity Shop, which is as eclectic and rammed as you could desire. Among the slightly damp-smelling second-hand clothing, you can find brand new tea towels, hand knitted tea cosies, dog toys, Tupperware, CDs nobody wanted in 1997 let alone now, mismatched china, costume jewellery, honey, homemade cakes – and these guys:
I spotted them as soon as I walked in. I thought they were teddies, but why were they on the floor? And why were they so heavy?
“They’re doorstops,” the volunteer told me. “Handmade. Aren’t they cute?”
“They really are.”
I had never seen anything so magnificent. They were perfect. They were $8 each. I bought both.
“I’m glad they’re being taken together,” the volunteer said, as she rung up my purchase.
“I couldn’t separate them,” I said. “They’re buddies.”
“You’re very kind,” she said.
I nodded. Am I?
I took the bag with my new doorstops and went up to my music lesson. Later, when I was riding home, I thought – these are inanimate objects. How strange to call someone kind for buying bits of fabric.
And yet it did feel like an act of kindness, to keep these two heavy little guys together. They were made by the same person, they were donated together to the Charity Shop, they sat on the floor together and watched customers coming and going, stepping over them. Of course I couldn’t separate them.
And now I have two doorstops holding open one door.
I named them Will and Ted.
