I am thinking very much about tablecloths right now. As my devotees--all ten of you-- have read, I've lately become dryer-enabled. (I feel so modern and fashionable using that sort of language, though my inner grammarian just shat himself. Why must we now create adjectives by combining a noun and a passive verb form?) Anyway, I have discovered that good linens do not fend well in a dryer. Their edges get all curly and you still end up having to starch the bejesus out of them and iron them, which was part of what the dryer was supposed to cure.

Oh well. In my endless search for proper linens I have been forced to turn to ebay.

Ebay is a wonderful invention. It is that much more wonderful for its origins, which I understand are traced to its inventor's girlfriend, who collected PEZ dispensers. Anybody who collects PEZ dispensers is pretty much OK in my book. I even have the prized OLD Halloween skull dispenser. If anybody has the PEZ gun, which could actually fire the PEZ at your mouth or at hapless bystanders, that person may advance to the front of the line, but be aware that I will probably hit on that person.

But I do not intend to speak of PEZ, nor really of ebay itself. I am forced to shop for linens on ebay because there are no nice department stores left in the United States. I'm fairly sure that I could shop happily for gigantic damask tablecloths at KaDeWe in Berlin, or for random lace doohickies (yes, that is the official term, as far as I'm concerned) at Galeries-Lafayette in Paris.

I am not in Paris nor Berlin, and Hutzler's and Thalhimers are both long gone, so I've got to troll ebay for all of this crap. Also fine, but the folk who sell crap on ebay are apparently confused about having dinner for anyone but themselves.

Since when is a 94" long tablecloth "huge?" Crimony. That's just long enough to serve six people, and even then the cloth won't hang all the way to the floor. It barely hangs down six inches, which means it's a luncheon cloth. Have any of these people ever entertained? If so, are they in Alaska somewhere, and are entertaining only small friendly forest animals who are not familiar with dinner etiquette? Sheesh. I have personally observed that small friendly animals aren't too good with handling soup spoons either, so it probably doesn't matter whether you let them eat on a damask cloth or not. (Large animals tend to be less friendly and pay no attention to the tablecloth, simply eating their host and having done with the whole ordeal.)

I did find one reasonably-sized cloth down in Williamsburg at one of the interminable outlet stores. Perhaps this is my best option. It is 150" long, and does have a lovely and unusual paisley pattern woven into the damask. Also, it is not real damask but has some unnatural fiber and will therefore hold up in the dryer without curling or doing something else weird. It also does not look very good because it can't be really and truly starched and ironed or it will melt.

My top three reasons for a time machine that will take me back to 1925: a) I will be able to watch Clara Bow movies at the Colonial in Richmond. b)If I play my cards right I can get a date with Reed Howes, the Arrow Collar Boy and a real live Marine. c) I can go to O' Neill's on Charles street, order two thousand dollars worth of linen, and have it put in a bank vault so that I can use it when I get back to the future.

And, having received my fifty-odd tablecloths, I will be able to entertain myself endlessly by taking care of them, and freak out my ausland neighbors hanging them outside.