BY MAGGIE BEAMGUARD | Insider Editor
“Hands off mom’s scissors.”
This was the one, inviolable house rule of my childhood. Dare to use the fabric scissors on your science fair project matboard and risk the scythe of motherly wrath.
In the process of clearing out mom’s estate recently, I discovered her scissors — and more scissors — stuck in pencil boxes, sewing baskets, desk drawers, medicine cabinets, night stands, couch cushions, purses and tool boxes.
The total number gathered? 99. Unlike bottles of beer, this collection will keep you sharp.
Betty Frampton was known to hide shears in unusual places. One memorable dinner at Pizza Hut, following a sweltering day at the spring Aiken Steeplechase, culminated in a stupefying scene.
As red pebbled tumblers full of Pepsi sweated with condensation on the table, a confused look came over my mother’s face. She gingerly patted her chest. Reaching under the collar of her shirt, she pulled out an eight-inch pair of orange-handled Fiskars.
Silence pierced the air and everyone, including my sister’s wide-eyed boyfriend, stared aghast.
Mom toted the pair along on the two and a half hour car ride from Charleston to Aiken to finish a small sewing project. Somewhere along I-26, she stowed them away in her ample bosom. There they stayed. All day — through tailgating, summer heat and sunburn.
There was never a dull moment with her. Whether it was sheer obsession or sheer genius, our matriarch always had a pair of cutting implements within arms reach. Who hasn’t known the frustration of needing a good pair of scissors?
The full collection contained pretty embroidery scissors, haircutting, dressmaking and pinking shears, buttonhole scissors, antique snips, safety and craft scissors and, mysteriously, surgical implements.
The hobbies that kept her snipping were generally harmless. But it was my misfortune when she took the clippers to my locks. I looked less like a sassy Dorothy Hamill and more like one of the Three Stooges.
There was a tool for every job. And she used them all. Like a modern day Atropos, the personification of one of the three Greek fates, the woman liked to cut.
When the thread of life is finally severed, the acquisitions we leave behind will tell their own blunt story about us.
What does a fly swatter in every room, say? Or a meticulous stamp collection? Or 20 pairs of reading glasses, two dozen hammers, or hundreds of pounds of fossils? Or a closet bearing 200 silk ties or designer shoes? Or 99 pairs of scissors?
As for my mom, her scissors say she was as cut above the rest: practical, creative, industrious, prepared.
I picked out a few pairs to add to my burgeoning collection including a pair with attractive tortoise shell handles and a pair of heavy duty 10-inch vintage Clauss.
I’ll tuck them in a useful place, just nowhere I might get stabbed. And with that, I will cut this short.
Contact Maggie Beamguard at maggie@thepilot.com.