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Appointments: (734) 422-8040
Mail Order: (800) 511-9769

8/27
1999

WW1& dietresuIts.corn

. 132 Detroit Jewish News

16311 Middlebelt, Livonia

Getting Your `House'
Perfectly In Order

TERESA STRASSER
Special to the Jewish News

Los Angeles (JTA)
ne recent day, all was right
with the world. I was the
master of the details in my
universe. I had arranged to
pay my bills online, lugged five pairs
of shoes in to be shined and reheeled
picked up my dry cleaning, bought
stamps.
I slept in peace, my clothes hanging
in perfectly aligned plastic bags in my
closet above rows of newly repaired
and gleaming shoes. The dishes were
done. The smoggy haze of my mental
to-do list cleared and left a crisp hori-
zon free for thoughts of more signifi-
cant matters. Anything was possible.
The next morning, I woke up to
find that my car stereo was gone. It
looked as though
,,, someone had held
shop class in my car, leaving rugged
saw marks and exposed wires wheie
the dashboard and funky old stereo
had been.
I stood there long enough to notice
that the perpetrator of this indelicate
stereo removal had also vomited on
the side of my already beleaguered
Datsun. Nice touch.
As I lifted my hand to cradle my
wincing forehead, I noticed a rash had
broken our across my knuckles.
Was that a line from a William
Butler Yeats poem that kept going
through my head? -- "Things fall apart."
Oddly enough, what troubled me
most was that the thief had stolen my
small bottle of hand sanitizer from the
glove compartment. I had always
aspired to be the type of person who
would have such an item on hand,
and its removal seemed to signal the
fact that I was now a mess again, with
what appeared to be a case of leprosy
--,
creeping up my hands.
"Things fall apart," I told my
friend Gary, reporting on the morn-
ing's events.
I flooded him with questions: Do I
replace the stereo? If I do, does that
mean I have to move to a safer neigh-
borhood to prohibit another break-in?
Should I get better insurance or one
of those take-out stereos?
Did the thief vomit because he or
she was so disgusted with his or her
actions, or was it just some bad curry?
Do I get a new car and start over?
What do I do?
"Drive that thing into the ground,"

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