Hi, my name is Lenore and I am a table hoarder. Its been five years since I last brought one home.

Thanks to Fred the teenage cat, tables are front and center with me at this moment. He surprised himself when he jumped from the tall china cabinet top onto the glass topped table.

Wow, what a cracking noise!

What in the world?

I ran to see what had happened as he ran past me into the bedroom. He’d done a doozy of a stress-fracture on the old glass. I sure learn my lessons hard. Never and I mean never put a breakable anything in a cat’s path. Saying that a cat lands light on their feet is hog wash and well, not true. I took the little table into a glass shop this morning. The shop mostly works on cars and house windows, but the lady said she’d talk to the fellas. Anyway, that table reminds me that apparently my table addiction is alive and kicking.

A six legged table sits over by my front door. Needing a rest from concentrating on traffic, on a road trip, I stopped at an antiques mall and stepped back out with a black spindled beauty. I looked out at the noisy highway, stared down into my car’s little trunk and gauged its size to the octagonal table. I’d handed over a hundred dollars for something that might and I mean might, squeeze into that trunk.

Another fifty or so miles to go….

It fit. And didn’t bear a scratch from the attempt.

The drum table, the round old lady edifice with the metal lion’s feet? There by the cracking, tall bureau? That three legged beauty was my Grandma’s and must have started life in a Midwestern factory. Its something I lived with, not really seeing it, all through my childhood and then on past middle age. One of the last things my Mom said to me before dementia fogged her words was that the table must be mine. Mom had polished it and kept it in good shape all through her years and soon, it would be my turn.

Then there’s the folding table by my left side. That table has wing like supports underneath it. Those wings are a magician’s wand. Raise them up and yes! Its rectangle becomes a cherry wooden egg. I happened on it in a small antique shop. One of my sisters ‘egged’ me into buying it. I had been using a wooden TV tray, the ten dollar variety that many drug stores sell in December. She said I should have a proper table.

My eyes lit on the cherry table. It begged me to take it home. I heard it sobbing and what to do?

The table that Fred cat damaged, I spotted in a fire hall! The volunteer firemen-women had had a garage sale. The table’s sides are embellished; there’s a little shelf in its middle. Red brown. I am a silly when it comes to sales. I should not have done it but I asked if the five dollar price could go down to four. It could. I handed over four dollar bills, grabbed the table in my arms and ran, giggling all the way down a steep hill to my house.

The dining room table, scarred yellow monster, once lived in a downtown Hallmark shop until that shop and all its dusty doodads went out of business. It still has masking tape on its sides. Every so often I peel off another layer, smiling at the six old chairs that I’ve placed around it.

Can I be the only one addicted to All Things Table? Is there no one out there who will dare to raise a glass and toast a cheer to aged wood, vibrantly scarred yet solid to the hand and friendly to the eyes?