Here is something that you might not know: there are no closets in Switzerland.

They tried to explain the reasons for this to me -- something about tax codes. I think I could perhaps have understood it if only I hadn't stopped paying attention three words into the explanation ("Well, tax codes...")

So when I fell in love with Jonathan, I had the choice between moving with my little boys to a land without closets or giving up forever the very breath of my body, the very beating of my heart, my bones and dreams and blood.

I chose the breathing and went shopping for wardrobes the first week we landed in Zurich.

It is beyond me to describe the carved Gothic horrors selling for thousands of francs in the only used furniture store in Zurich. Not having the need to house any sleeping vampires -- although not necessarily opposed to it in principle, you understand -- and not having thousands of francs to blow on what is basically a big box, I ended up, as one inevitably, lamentably, does, at Ikea.

I don't know if you have ever been to Ikea.

Ikea is functional.

Ikea is affordable.

Ikea is practical.

Ikea will take your soul out through your nose with a long hook like the ancient Egyptians did with human brains in preparation for mummification.

I guess worse things could happen. 

So we got wardrobes and assembled them with much cursing and then put our clothes in them. For the one my little boys shared, I decided to paint on it -- make it less corporate, less bland, more festive, more ours.

The little boys were five and eight years old, so (as required by Little Boy Law) we painted a dragon on it. I copied a picture of a dragon from one of the (many) dragon books around the house and then we filled in the outline with poster paint, making the scales by dipping our fingers in the paint and pressing our fingertips (mostly) inside the outline.

And there it has been for almost 20 years. It came back across the ocean with us and has been in their old bedroom all these years, holding a progression of bigger and bigger jeans, bigger and bigger shoes, shirts with ever longer arms, soccer shin guards and woolen hats and t-shirts commemorating long-forgotten events, eventual suits and ties. And every time I looked at it, I saw again my little boys in the alpine afternoon light, concentrating, dripping paint everywhere, working away on their dragon, the three of us together.

Today, we put the wardrobe out at the curb and ARC took it away.