How insightfully helpful

“What’s that?” I said, squinting at some white fuzzy stuff hooked to my Patient Husband’s shoe.

I tugged it, then said, “Don’t move,” and I started unwinding a really long thread from both his shoes. Kiddo2 came over to help, and then we began giggling because there was like a mile of the stuff.

Finally I said, “Lift your foot,” and freed the last bit.

“Where’d it come from?” said my Patient Husband.

I followed the thing backward, backward along the tiles, until it reached the supply closet. I opened the door, and on the floor was a spool of white thread, dutifully unspooling its 150 yards of thready goodness in order to help hold the world together. I imagine the Brain-Damaged Cat snagged a bit of it under the door (he’s learned there are good things to be pulled out from under doors, even though he’s not entirely sure what they are) and from that point you can piece together the rest.

I said, “It would have been funny if you’d gotten into the car and driven off that way.”

My Patient Husband said, heartbroken, “But now how am I going to find my way home?”

I’m a total hardass. I kissed him goodbye. “You have a GPS.”

He brightened up. “I have two.”

Ten minutes later, Kiddo3 came to me, holding a Dead Sock. “I slid on the floor,” he mourned, “and it snagged on a nail, and now there’s this big hole in it.”

“Give it to me. I’ll see what I can do.” Because apparently the spool of thread knew it would be needed today, and it crept out of the closet because it was trying to be helpful. It just was ahead of its time.