sometimes the small things...

...can be the most life-altering.

Case in point: I have spent my entire life waging an epic battle with Venetian Blinds. I hate them. I have always hated them. I don't understand how anyone could not hate them. Never in my life have I been able to make them work for me. If I want them to stay up, I usually have to tie the cord to/around/through something. If I want them to come down, I have to spend sometimes up to ten minutes engaging in a precise--indeed, almost surgical--operation whereby I pull first one string, then the other. Lately I've been pulling the string with my right hand while my left tugs ever-so-gently on the actual blinds themselves.

Last night I was using the dual-handed trick and trying to close the blinds in our bedroom. I was becoming visibly and increasingly frustrated when my dear, sweet husband said the following, oh-so-casually: "You know that you pull the string to the left to lower the blinds, right?"

No. I did not know that.

Other things I learned in the course of last night's conversation:

• To raise the blinds you simply pull the string, of course (I did know that)
• But to get the blinds to actually stay that way you pull the string sharply to the right
  

I have since practiced this many times. Each time the blinds have operated perfectly. I can scarcely describe this feeling; it's as though I've gone my whole life with blurry vision and someone has suddenly given me glasses. It's like I'm Helen Keller in that scene from The Miracle Worker where she finally figures out how to say "water." In that one small moment my entire life changed for the better. The war is over.