Mama Kat Thursday: Window Shade Capers

Today's post is another notably amusing memory from my childhood visits to Grandma Robbins house.

Our house in Indiana, where my sisters and I grew up, had windows and curtains and that was it. We'd never seen a pull-down window shade in person, but just on cartoons where the characters were always pulling them down, then letting them snap up to roll crazily at the the top.

(Amazingly, I couldn't find a single window shade gif of Looney-Toons or Tom & Jerry, pulling down window shades, though it was pretty common on those shows. So I drew one.)

But our Grandma Robbins had real window shades on her windows---the old fashioned vinyl draw-down kind with a pull-string. I recall that string had a ring on the end  that was encircled with pretty ecru colored crochet and that the shade had a floral print.

I was probably trendy decorating for the early to mid-20th century. 

But because my sisters and I had only ever seen window shades on cartoons, we only saw window shades as being a source of humor like in the cartoons.

The upstairs bedroom my sisters and I were in happened to have one of these pull-down window shades in the window. So naturally, we imitated what we'd seen on cartoons: we pulled it all the way down, then released it, making it snap upward and spin wildly at the top. It made us laugh and we took turns pulling it down, then letting it go. It was hilarious.

It turns out, though, window shades don't actually like this sort of treatment.

On about the 3rd or 4th pull, it snapped to the top, spun wildly, then flipped completely out of the window, flying across the room and landing with a loud thud. It might've even hit another wall.

We stared at it, startled.
Such things never happened on cartoons.
In fact, in cartoons, window shades seemed sturdy enough to hold other cartoon characters rolled up inside.

But that racket drew our Mother's attention.

 I'm not sure whether she was just in an adjacent bedroom or actually came all the way up stairs, but, in any case, she suddenly appeared to investigate the ruckus, picked up the shade, put it back on it's holders in the window frame and warned us sternly to leave all Grandma's shades alone.

Thanks for Visiting