We lived in a comfortable ranch style home on a basement in Saginaw Township. At the end of the short hallway was the mystic porthole which lead to the deep dark dungeon where only the bravest of the family members dare to go....MOM. It had a square opening with wood trim. The wooden square door had a simple brass knob just hanging there on its own wall. To the right side of the hallway was me and my sister's bedroom, bathroom door was on the left side. On some small occasions mom would put a small wire chair below it or a table to display small figurines on it to give it that special look. That simple square opening in the wall was something more to me. It was part of my childhood memories.
Growing up I thought everyone had a clothes chute. Two of my friends that lived near by had them. They had small narrow ones and seemed unused but ours was big and we used it. On the back side wall of the clothes chute was our closet. There was only half a wall there and from our closet we could toss clothes down into it - kinda like a two way chute. Sometimes my sister would want to be alone with her friends and she would lock me out of our room. Well, being an annoying little sister that I was I would climb up into the chute and very carefully fling myself across into our closet. It had to be done carefully or else I would of fallen below into the basement and that probably wouldn't be a good thing. But I was good at wriggling myself in and pulling myself across. If I think hard enough I can still feel the other wall digging into my gut as I cross into the closet. She just couldn't keep me out.
The clothes chute drops down into the laundry room in the basement. Makes sense. I remember reaching up high (with mom near-by to fight off creatures that may be lurking around the corner) and turning the latch and the heavy wooden door would swing around on its hinges and the trapped laundry would finally escape into a heap on the basement floor right in front of the washing maching. Sometimes the laundry would be so packed in that the laudry would just be wedged in the chute. I remember jumping up trying to reach for any piece of clothing to unclog the clothes. A sock would fall...maybe a shirt or two. Then you grab onto a pant leg. The whole heap would come crashing down on your head quicker than you can get out of the way. Deep down that was kind of fun when it happened.
My older brother and my older sister got along for the most part. My older sister would babysit us as mom went off to college and we would play games or watch a movie. Then headlights would pull into the driveway and we would remember the forgotten dishes in the sink. We knew mom liked chatting in the car with a friend she car pooled with for a few minutes so we had to act fast. Marc would unload the dishwasher, Lisa would toss in the dirty dishes and I would take the pots and pans and toss them down the clothes chute. A few days would go by and mom would go downstairs to do laundry. A few moments later we would hear the crashing sounds of the pots and pans making their desent down onto the basement floor followed by the sounds of, "I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THESE!!! JILL, GET DOWN HERE NOW!" Ooops, I guess I forgot about them being in there. Somehow she always knew it was me too.
Another time my brother and his friends thought it would be funny to put our cat down in the chute. There was also some clothes in there so she had a soft landing. The hard part was getting her out. No one wanted to open the chute to have our cat digging her claws into the first thing she sees. We held out a sheet, not only to help catch our cat but to mostly protect ourselves from her. It took all three of us to operate the rescuse mission for our cat. Two to hold the sheet and one brave sole to open the door. She finally made her way out and lickity split she ran upstairs and hid for the rest of the day.
I spent the first 16 years of my life at this house and no other places I have lived after that had a clothes chute. There was a lesson I did learn from looking back: Never stand underneath a clothes chute as you never know what to expect!
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