Our Wooden Card Table

In preparation for several additional guests for Thanksgiving, we were recently trying to arrange seating for nine people at one table.  Our dining room table is oval shaped and can only seat 6-7 comfortably. 

Surely we could solve this problem.  After all, since the death of our parents, we have three or four other dining tables stashed around the house and garage. 

What we really wanted to do was slide a smaller table up against a dining table to make one long seating area.  That meant measuring and comparing the height of every table in the house.  So much for standard heights—nothing matched.  Our last hope was going to be an old wooden card table.

Jenni had picked up this table at a resale store in town.  It was in terrible shape at the time but had character.  It was all wood, including the folding legs.  We thought it may have had a gameboard built into it at one time but that was long gone; just a square hole in the center when she got it.  She spent hours restoring it, adding a new inlay to the top, polishing the brass tips on the legs, and staining the wood to be one cohesive look.  We stored it in the garage when not in use.

On this particular day I told Jenni I would go down to the garage and measure it to see if it was the same height of one of our other long tables.  I promise I searched all over the garage but had to report back that it wasn’t there.  I think I went back a second time, feeling great pressure, but with the same results. She knows how good I am at looking for things so now she went to the garage herself.  Before going downstairs we had a brief discussion about who wins what, depending on who was right or wrong.  (I fully expected to lose.)  A few minutes later I was thrilled to learn I had not overlooked the table.

That took the search through the living quarters.  Six closets and the attic.  Nothing.  Under a bed?  Nada.  I texted the kids and asked if they had borrowed it.  Nope.

For the life of us we are not sure what happened to the table.  After great contemplation I vaguely recalled a day in the garage, during a major reorganization blitz, there was a conversation about having too many tables and this particular one had no sentimental value.  Did we haul it away at that point?  We’re just not sure.  I feel certain I, being the packrat, would have persuaded her to keep it because of all the work she put into it.  Maybe I was weak that day.

So anyway, we figured out suitable seating for nine and had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. 

But if any of our local friends saw a square, wooden, almost-antique-looking card table at the Goodwill or Miracle Hill resale stores in the past six months, would you please give us some peace of mind? 

We need it for the little bit of mind we seem to have remaining.