At Home he's a Tourist

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When Dina, Harmon, and I moved from Manhattan to Manhattan it was the hardest button to button. At first it was, anyway, as I carefully packed away all my 7 inches, but when we arrived it was no longer the hardest button to button, it was now the missing Hardest Button to Button. For our old place in Manhattan Dina and I had gotten a car crusher machine. We saw it on television in a Chuck Norris movie. It's a space saver. You put 50 or so cars into the crusher and the cars get crushed into the size of a microwave. In our last Manhattan apartment we had 3 large closets. So we had a small kitchen, a small bathroom, and good sized living room and bedroom. Small by manhattan standards but in some parts of the world considered a large city. So we had the car compacter and we lived there for 20 years or so, so every month or so, we would pile a bunch of our stuff into the compactor, crush it down and throw it into the closet. It was a real space saver that car crusher. However when we moved from Manhattan to Manhattan we had to take all the compacts out of the closet and figure out what they were and whether we should take the stuff with us or not. So we would pull a compact out of the closet, place it on the coffee table, and from an eyedropper drop one drop of water on the compact and wait for it to expand. And expand it would, into a big mess all over the living room floor. So we would keep, give, or throw things away until we cleaned out our closets and had our entire apartment packed into boxes ready for that long trip in the truck from Manhattan to Manhattan. Once we and boxes made the trek in the truck from Manhattan to Manhattan, we settled in, emptied the boxes, recycled the boxes, and compacted everything into our new closets. I said to Dina "wow, moving is really the hardest button to button". "That's true", she said, "why don't we listen to The Hardest Button to Button 7 inch". "O.K." I said. I looked through my 7 inch boxes and to my shock and horror and horror and shock I was missing a box of 7 inches. I wasn't worried though, when you move you're always going to lose some things and find some things. That's what's cool about it. Although I was somewhat upset because I had lost a bunch of great and valuable 7 inches. I never collect records for profit, but I'm a trainspotting collector so I always end up having rare expensive stuff. So change is good and it's always good to weed a collection but sometimes I still missed hearing that rare 7 inch only expensive B side. So one of the singles I lost was The Hardest Button to Button. As great as that single is, it was inconsequential compared to most of the stuff I lost, I would make a list but you would end up hating me, crying for me, calling me up with an offer, or breaking into my apartment. Then on Valentines day Dina gave me a gift of The Hardest Button to Button 7 inch she bought on the secondary market. It was a loving gesture on her part knowing most of the 7 inches I lost could not be found anywhere, so to get The Hardest Button to Button was a thoughtful, loving gift. Like magic as I was digging for Third Man and XL seven inches I came upon a box of 45's and thinking they were Prewar 45's almost didn't open them, but I did and it was indeed my original Hardest Button to Button 7 inch and all the other lost 45's. So the hardest button to button always leads to the next hardest button to button.