For the last I don’t even know how many months, I had been on a quest for kids’ bedding. This might sound trivial but let me tell you. The options are duvets from IKEA that our laundry machine reliably shreds, which does not-good things to the filling, or going to Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel or whatever is even higher-end than those and ordering something that costs $300 and then wait until that turns out to be shredded by the rotating blades that apparently make up the mechanism of our laundry machine.
It then occurred to me that there are bedding stores. Are, or were? Is that still a thing? I know that Bed, Bath, and Beyond, insofar as it’s a bedding store, ceased operations in Canada. (I know because the one I used to go to is now the IKEA.) But I was thinking maybe an independent shop, not so as to patronize small business necessarily but to go to a place that actually specializes in the thing, and might have a selection.
It’s at this point that a normal person would have remembered that Homesense exists. I, however, remembered passing a linen store in Little Italy, or was prompted to remember when finding it on Google Maps, and was like, yes, this.
You know Zola’s novel, The Ladies’ Paradise, about the then-new department store phenomenon in Paris? Do you remember how the big store pushed out the little mom-and-pops? This is the mom-and-pop from a Parisian alleyway from that book. What it’s doing on a major artery in Toronto I cannot say, but there it is.
What does M & F Linen Bazaar sell? You cannot find this (or, say, its hours) online, because there wasn’t online in the mid-late 19th century. But if you go, you’ll find this very tempting array of dish towels, aprons, washcloths, things of that nature, out front. There are also hats that look like ones you could get at a tourist site in Italy, and slippers for if you want to look like an elderly Italian man. There are tablecloths and cloths to use to add an extra decorative layer of cloth to your table. There is woolen long underwear, made in Italy but probably useful in Toronto.
Then there are the nightgowns. I was SO intrigued. Like nap dresses but better, and each something like $45. White cotton, like a bedsheet material, some with flowers embroidered, or smocking, really nice details. I did not actually buy one, because it’s already cold out / because I don’t sleep in a 1950s nightgown / because a bright-white garment doesn’t work with little kids / because they’re all a bit tent-like and after the maternity-wear era I’m set for things like that if I ever want to go the muumuu route. But had it been 90 degrees out when I’d walked in, I’d have considered it.
Also robes. For if you want to look like you’re on Frasier and just had sex.
But most importantly, there was bedding. The bedding. It’s this set, for $50, including a quilted pillowcase (I hadn’t even known it came with one!) and a just-the-right-thickness, not-stuffed but not-flimsy quilt-patterned twin blanket. It can (I have tested this) all go through the washer and dryer. It is all polyester, which I know you’re supposed to object to but do you know what’s worse? Something that needs to be washed on delicate and line-dried (in Canada), or that rips in the laundry and distributes bits of polyester filling throughout the house, everywhere but in the blanket where it belongs.
Obviously, what it's doing on a major artery is being the sort of thing that attracts discerning ladies with an eye for the Italian quality, which is TOTALLY a market segment. Seriously! 😏👍
elm
truly, the comedy is from her having sex with gay-coded dude which makes some very 90's sense, since she probably doing it with a tattoo artist