Beware The Borrowers

The Borrowers
You have to know me. I am the home school mom who shuns the Little Mermaid and Dragon Tales. We turn off Sesame Street in my house if they start talking about witches or sorcerers. But there’s one set of fantasy characters I can’t help believing in with all my heart. In fact, as the mom of thirteen, my faith has grown over the years. I believe in the Borrowers.
You probably read the books as a child. You know, the supposedly fictitious little people who lived under the floorboards of the English country house and later lived in a shoe in the country. Long before Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the Borrowers were doing what they do best, making a living unseen by human eyes by borrowing items we humans thought we had misplaced.
In our first house, my husband and I didn’t have any Borrowers. It was small, and at first there were just the two of us. When I set down a book I was reading, for instance, it would remain in the same place, bookmark unmoved, until I picked it up again. In those days, I never paid a library fine, never spent any time looking for a pencil or a safety pin. My dishes did not migrate around the house. I never found a fork under the computer table, for instance.
But I digress. As a young mom, I had little trouble with the Borrowers. Occasionally they would pop up to take some significant item. The Borrowers in that house really only liked infant socks and an occasional toddler shoe. Oh, and sometimes they enjoyed sifting through my bills and papers when I wasn’t looking. Everything else was carefully managed by one energetic and well-meaning neurotic mother…me. They couldn’t get much past me. I was vigilant. I wanted to set out traps, but when my husband looked at me like I was… inhumane? I gave up the idea, albeit a bit resentfully.
Those missing socks got me though. Every time I would dress the baby he would be missing a sock. The cheeky critters were bold enough to assault my little ones whenever they were out of my sight. Every day I would feed socks two by two into the washer, and every day I would fold the dryer load and find that some were missing. I knew the Borrowers lived somewhere behind the washer and dryer, but I never understood how they got in there and back out safely, what with all the spinning and hot water and such. And what did they do with little socks and shoes?? I had fantasies of moving the washer to find them, wearing completely mismatched shirts and hats Homily had cut and sewn out of infant socks, using the toddler shoe as a child’s bed, perhaps? I often wondered if that missing Christmas card from Aunt Lou was the wallpaper in their makeshift home. I guess now I’ll never know.
That early batch of Borrowers were lightweights compared to the ones who now infest our house. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that our current home is completely inundated with little people who take whatever they want whenever they want. Like a hoard of greedy mice, they live in every crack and corner, ready to pounce on anything that is ever out of our sight, if only for a second. Though these Borrowers still have a penchant for baby shoes and socks, nothing (and I mean absolutely nothing) is now safe from their thievery. If anyone in the family lays down a book for any amount of time, for instance, that book immediately disappears. Apparently the Borrowers in this present house are avid readers, because the books usually reappear in the oddest places, such as under the bed, on the porch swing, in the cereal cupboard, or on the trampoline the day after it rains. On more than one memorable occasion, stolen items have been found in our fifteen passenger van in the trash bins or out in the garage. How they do it, I’ll never know, but these Borrowers display creativity that belies their appetite for Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. I hate to admit it, but library fees are common in our household. In fact we now consider fines the price we have to pay for allowing the Borrowers to remain un-confronted for so long. Vigilance is out the window. We now live to make peace with the Borrowers.
Its cowardly I know, but as an older mom with only so much energy, I have to pick which battles I choose to fight. In fact, my current goal is to purchase enough pacifiers, pencils, earrings, socks, and paper clips that the house actually has a saturation point. Drop a pacifier and can’t find it? No matter. You’ll probably find one the Borrowers are finished with under the couch cushion. It takes all my power of denial to keep from asking where it’s been. In our house, when it comes to the Borrowers, the rule is “Don’t Ask; Don’t tell.” And I would add: “Try not to imagine.”
I used to ask questions when, as vigilant Mom, I felt it was my role to interrogate the last person to see the missing items. Such interrogation was always pointless. Even in those simpler days when less was going on and possessions were fewer, I quickly realized all questioning was essentially futile. My children, of course, were then and continue to be, careful and conscientious about these matters. They consistently put things away where they belong without prompting except in the occasional instance when I happen to be in the room and watching them. At those times, they might forget, and I would remind. But all other times out of my sight they are independently perfectionists about their possessions. Just ask them.
In fact, to hear my honest and trustworthy children tell it, the Borrowers we began to harbor were a dangerous lot, indeed. These aggressive Borrowers have even taken perfectly sharpened pencils out of my dutiful students’ hands as they are working on assignments at the kitchen table. But since I have taken to buying the thousand-pack at Costco, my students only have minor inconvenience in sharpening another from the drawer. Since the stories began to rival the stuff of nightmares, I stopped asking. And I’m a much happier woman for having done so.
I’ve taken to offering a bounty for missing items we need, say a penny for a pencil. In this way, we’ve managed to wrest a few items away from the tiny robbers. But the majority of small possessions remain lost to us forever, or at least until the Borrowers are done with them. The only problem with offering pennies is that the Borrowers are especially fond of taking those also when they get out into circulation. The Borrowers are particularly mean to little children when it comes to pennies, often taking them out of pockets and even hands.
Although I live to make peace with them, the Borrowers still make my family’s life much harder than it needs to be. Many a college homework assignment has disappeared when it was almost finished, and had to be redone in a late-night scurry. Besides library fines, there is the inevitable financial drain they impose. I still hate the thought that I am supporting such a large army of remorseless wastrels, but what else can I do? If only I had the time and courage to call in the fumigators.
Sometimes, I am amazed at the Borrowers’ daring and ingenuity. How do they get inside the refrigerator to eat the half of brownie I brought home from the restaurant? While don’t they eat the leftover chili instead? I can imagine the feast they have, the little buggers, but still it fascinates to think they got in and out without being seen or trapped inside.
These days the sock question is a complete loss. In my house, a person is lucky to have any clean laundry, and two socks that fit (sort-of) even if they are your big brother’s and you found them under the bed. Matching is completely immaterial… and overrated.
And there are still some things I can’t imagine any Borrower would value. What do they do with all the silverware, for instance? Ten years ago, my husband bought me three sets of nice silverware in a pattern I chose. I was so thrilled. But today, I have ten forks, all mismatched, that I picked up from Goodwill. I figure what’s the use having nice things when the Borrowers will take them in a wink? And why do they like forks and spoons best? Every one knows knives are more useful. When we have company or the boys come home from college, somebody has to use plastic, but I don’t care. I draw the line at buying nice silverware if it’s only to be used for weapons and catapults and such and never seen by human eyes again.
And what do they do with earrings? Why do they like the pearls I got for birthdays and anniversary best? Is there some currency in their simple society or are they used as marbles for a child’s game? Who do they call on the cell phone before they return it to my coat pocket or under my chair? These questions could drive me crazy if I let them. Soccer shin guards and jerseys seem to be Borrower favorites, along with brushes and ponytail holders. As the mom of eight daughters, I have spent enough on ponytail holders to shoot a Borrower to the moon. I hope he likes it up there.
I end this confession to get ready for church. You’ll recognize me there. I’m the one with mismatched socks, one earring, and a van load of happy kids.