Patio pressure in a pandemic
Thanks to being chained to our yard for two summers, the only thing that’s keeping me sane is patio life—it’s my Mexico.
I may not be able to do things I once enjoyed like hop on a plane, go to concerts or participate in our annual backyard non-socially distanced mudwrestling tournament but I can watch the world go by in the comfort of an 18-piece patio set … if only I could find one. A store with patio furniture in stock is about as easy to come by as a pound of butter for less than $6.99. And if you do find something, you must be willing to sell your husband’s prized John Deere ride-on mower behind his back to pay for it. Imagine.
The pressure starts early. The minute I hack the Christmas tree to pieces with a chainsaw and pitch it out the front door, I have to start panicking about buying summer furniture with names like The Tuscany Conversation Collection. Along with my night sweats and teeth-gnashing, patio pressure is yet another thing that keeps me up half the night. I haven’t slept a wink since January 2020.
When I was a kid, our Tuscany Conversation Collection consisted of five rusted, brow-beaten and unmatched lawn chairs, one for each of us. They had an aluminum frame and were so light you
could lift all five of them with your pinkie. The seat was made of nylon strips in a basket weave pattern; after sitting on one for more than 10 minutes, you were rewarded with a red criss-cross mark on the back of your legs which often blistered and became infected.
The lawn chairs were placed on the actual lawn without (gasp) an area rug to ‘anchor the space.’ There were no ottomans or side tables—people held their Alpine in one hand and flicked their Export “A” ashes onto the grass with the other. The total cost of outdoor furniture was about $25 and people put as many seconds into deciding which chairs to buy. No one used words like oasis, backyard retreat or bankrupt when referring to their patios ... because no one had patios. They had a back step … if they were in the nice part of town. Otherwise, it was just the lawn.
These days, if you don’t
have a backyard paradise as extravagant as Kim Kardashian’s living room, complete with a gurgling water fountain and a Gordon Ramsey-approved stone pizza oven, you don’t have a leg to stand on. Last summer after realizing I wouldn’t be going past the driveway, I began a mental patio spiral and it wasn’t pretty. After scrolling through Instagram posts of dreamy outdoor spaces, I called my husband out of a meeting to bring him up to speed.
“Bad news! Our deck is way too small and our solid teak, hand-crafted Adirondack chairs are no longer on point. We need plush furniture that’s far superior to our living room couch and seating for 28 people for that one time in a decade we entertain. Oh, and when the boys come home to visit and find not one single outdoor throw cushion that says Life’s a Beach, how do you think they’ll feel? It’s abuse!”
He responded, “May I ask who’s calling?”
Despite our patio being the size of a bar of Ivory soap, I wanted the whole kit and kaboodle—an oversized sectional that you could sink into; a dining table with an umbrella even though we haven’t eaten outside since the hornet incident in 2003; and a live band playing Kim Mitchell’s Patio Lanterns as I float to my outdoor oasis in silk leisurewear holding a margarita. Is that too much to ask? Cripes.
Then there’s the other part of me that enjoys things like food, running water and heat so I decided to wait until the end of the season to see if I could find a sale. The end of the season turned out to be July 10 and a sale turned out to be $49 off a $3,999 sectional — cushions and legs sold separately. It was on back order, but I was promised it would be in stock by Nov. 30, just in time for the first blizzard.
In the end, I kiboshed the sectional idea because we had nowhere to store it during winter and besides who has the energy to run outside and grab 78 plush, luxurious, Instagram-worthy cushions every time it rained anyway? Pffft. I had no choice but to scale back my vision to something as basic as a comfy chair or two, a cute hummingbird feeder … and maybe an infinity pool.
By the time I finally made my decision, there was nothing left in stock and I ended up with diddly-squat. I wasn’t about to let that happen this summer. During my waking hours between the night sweats and teeth-gnashing, I’ve been crunching numbers and instead of selling my husband’s ride-on mower, I ate margarine instead of butter for a year (he owes me!). In doing so, I managed to save enough to buy one of those sumptuous hanging egg swing chairs. It fits on our tiny deck and is so comfortable I worry I might fall asleep in it after a pitcher of margaritas. Unfortunately, I don’t have seating for anyone else though and my infinity pool is on back order until 2035 (or so my husband informs me). Oh well. Instead of entertaining, I’ll just go to friends’ houses with pools. I’m pretty flexible that way.
Colleen Landry is a high school writing teacher, author of humour book Miss Nackawic Meets Midlife and co-author of the Camelia Airheart children’s adventure series. She and her husband are empty nesters in Moncton, N.B. Their two grown sons have ditched them for wider horizons. She is filling the void with Netflix, dark chocolate and Cabernet Sauvignon.