Our Lady of the Safety Pin

A while ago I was with someone who asked if I had a safety pin. It took me aback, no one's asked me that in a long time. The question carries with it a load of trust, hope and a feminine sort of intimacy I don't really feel worthy of answering since I would never have one anyway. Even if being able to hand one over at the moment of dangerous unfastening would make me feel like someone very put together. Like savior, nurse, mother, friend, seamstress and chamber maid all rolled into one, the bona fide preserver of appearances.

My mom always had safety pins when I was a kid, back when she may have used them to fasten my diapers. Those were the big kind with the fastening part coated in pastel colored plastic, but she also had the tiny ones good for fastening the strap on a sundress or the frill that has torn off the hem of a skirt.

I never bought the safety part, though, I understand what's meant by that, but the pin is actually a tiny machine that houses tremendous tension because of that tiny coil of wire at the base, which always threatens to force the needle point loose of its housing and prick the baby's terribly vulnerable bottom or whatever. I never quite trusted the pin.

I must have more faith these days because I found one on the floor of my mom's house and have decided to keep it in my bag indefinitely, waiting for that moment, if it ever comes again, when someone asks for one. It will be next to the band aids.  

And hopefully I won't drop it in the lake in Maine, like I did my canon powershot, which is why the photo above looks like it does. That's another story, though, one I'm not sure I have the heart to tell.