By Bill Quain
When I was a kid, I loved to play with “Colorforms.” They came in a box and had a big, laminated picture with various vinyl stickers on the side. The one I remember the best was of a boy that you could “dress” for the weather. You could choose from raincoats, winter coats, summer T-shirts, etc. It didn’t stop there. There were shoes, boots, sneakers, hats, shorts, trousers, and umbrellas – all kinds of weather gear. Kids could peel off the stickers and dress the boy for any weather-related condition. When you were done, you could peel the stickers off the boy, and carefully put them back into their place on the side, ready to use again and again.
There was a place for everything.
You could always tell if a piece was missing. If a certain sticker wasn’t on the boy, and it wasn’t in the specially designed place on the side, then it was gone! If a piece was missing, you could see the blank shape where it should have been. There was no mystery. Nothing else had its unique shape.
Forget vinyl stickers, let’s go magnetic!
Let’s move forward to 2023. My sister has a “seashore house” on the south end of Ocean City. She also has a 2 1/2-year-old granddaughter named Nora. As you might imagine, “Nana’s” seashore house is a magical place for family get-togethers. And like many seashore houses, it also has some special toys. In this case, it was a Colorforms-like house game, but instead of vinyl reusable stickers, all of the pieces were magnets! While the house has some pictures already in the four rooms (such as a stove and sink in the kitchen), there were 35 magnetic pieces that Nora could place in the home. These pieces included a dog bed, table, wall decorations, and the piece that became the centerpiece of a great story – a purple chair. On a trip to the shore in September, Nora asked if she could take the magnetic house home with her, and my sister agreed. Well, that was the beginning of the whole problem!
Nana, the purple chair is missing!
Somehow, somewhere, the purple chair went missing. It wasn’t at the seashore house or in the car. All of the other pieces were there, but that missing purple chair was the piece that Nora talked about. In fact, she would walk around the house, putting her hands on her head, saying “What is I missing? The purple chair!” Yes, we know that it should be “What am I missing”, but c’mon! The kid’s 2 1/2 – and besides, it makes the story even better!
Big problem: Nature hates a vacuum.
Now, we aren’t talking about an actual vacuum here. We’re talking about the obvious space left by something that was there but now is not. This is the point of my article, besides talking about a cute kid, a worried grandmother, and an obvious plug for having a summer home in Ocean City. When we discover that something is missing in our lives – especially if it’s something we used to have and enjoy – that item takes on an oversized importance. The first thing we try to do is to fill the vacuum. That’s just what happened with the missing purple chair. The hunt was on!
Nana’s seashore house and the car were searched and searched, to no avail. My sister then went to the store where she thought she bought the house. No one there could remember it. Finally, after a few weeks of fruitless searching, my sister did the logical thing. She searched for and ordered a new set on Amazon. Within a few days, a brand-new 35-piece magnetic house arrived at my sister’s Philadelphia home. And inside it was the big prize – the purple chair!
Some lessons from a purple chair
As she looked at the 35 magnets she now had, my sister decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate to give Nora the entire brand-new set. Instead, she simply presented her with the purple chair magnet. Nora was delighted. When Nora asked where the purple chair had been found, my sister told her it was at Nana’s seashore house – making Nana’s seashore house even more special, and greatly increasing the odds that Nora, (when she grew up and had children and grandchildren of her own), would want a seashore house of her own — thereby keeping property prices up in Ocean City.
My sister now has a reserve of the other pieces, some of which are bound to become lost in the future. They can “magically” be found at Nana’s seashore house, once again “sealing the deal” for bringing new generations of our family to the shore.
Identify the pieces you are missing.
Why was Nora able to identify the piece that was missing? Well, there was a picture of the purple chair on the box, just like there was a spot for each Colorforms piece. Nora knew it was supposed to be there. And that’s a great way to look at your life. Always have a clear picture in your mind of what is supposed to be there. You won’t miss a piece if you didn’t know it should have been there in the first place. More importantly, try to never lose a piece you can’t replace.
Tell me about your purple chairs!
As always, I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email at bill@quain.com. As I always say, I’ll see ‘ya in the papers.
Bill is a Professor in Stockton University’s Hospitality Management Program. He is the author of 27 books, and a highly-respected speaker. Even though he is almost totally blind, Bill is a long-distance runner and runs the Ocean City Half Marathon each year. He lives in Ocean City with his wife Jeanne, and his Guide Dog Trudy. Visit www.billquain.com or email him at bill@quain.com.
