The Sewing Rocker & the Facebook Storm

In case you're among the 1% of Shoals residents who haven't heard the tale of the sewing rocker, we're presenting it here, and drawing three conclusions from this sad debacle:

There was a lovely lady who had a son who had an infant daughter. We're going to call the lady Jane and the infant Big Baby.

Jane had a sewing rocker that, while it didn't have great monetary value, had quite a bit of sentimental value. She stated that when the time came, she wanted Big Baby to have it. Sadly, Jane suddenly departed this life without putting any of this in writing.

Big Baby's mother told family members that the rocker was to go to her. We'll call Big Baby's mother Lexie. According to Facebook, Lexie was the fiancee' of Jane's son, but she called Jane her mother-in-law. Confused yet?

Now we come to an unknown relative whom we'll simply call X. Even though Lexie has identified others in this situation, she has not identified X. It seems X donated a great deal of Jane's estate to a local thrift store. Did X have that right? We don't know. X could have been executor of the estate or simply a relative who came in and took charge.

At some point, Lexie realized that X had donated Big Baby's sewing rocker to the thrift store along with other items. Lexie immediately called the store owner whom we'll denote as Tess.

In fairness to Tess, she runs a large charity shop and hears all sorts of tales every day in order to scam her out of the stock she sells for charity; however, Lexie had a photo of Big Baby in the rocker which she showed Tess. Tess still refused to relinquish the sewing rocker, and strong language was used on both sides. At last report, the sewing rocker remains in the thrift store.

Now some conclusions:

1. If you want a family member or friend to have a particular item when you're gone, put it in writing. It's entirely possible X didn't like Lexie and without proof, didn't believe her. We can't stress too strongly that last wishes should be put in writing and given to a trusted friend to hold until the time comes.
2. It's possible that Tess had looked at Lexie's FB page and was unsure of all the relationships. If Lexie identified Jane's son as only a fiance', but called Jane a mother-in-law, Tess may have thought she was being scammed. The moral is to update your FB page if it needs updating.
3. There is a simple way to get the sewing rocker back. Lexie needs to file a police report stating that X stole the chair. The rocker may be in police custody for a while, but if Lexie has enough witnesses that the sewing rocker was to go to Big Baby, she should get it back to hold for her daughter.

We'll add that if we were Tess, we would have given it back even if we thought Lexie's story was a little dodgy. It does make for good will in the community.

To Lexie we're going to say that as you get older you'll lose precious items through theft, fire, water damage, moves, etc. You'll come to realize that the items aren't important in themselves. As long as you hold Jane in your heart, you don't need a mass produced sewing rocker to remind you of her.

Get It In Writing!

Since it's April 1st, let's have a work of fiction. We recently mentioned the man who wanted to leave his son his Rayo Mart empire, so let's use that for a basis.

Once upon a time after World War II, a man took his father's business and began to build it up, up into a small empire. Sadly the man had no sons to leave his business to, but he did have two daughters who married. One son-in-law worked for him, one did not. There was nothing wrong with that; not all young men want to go into the widget business.

The years passed and the man aged and eventually died. As often happens, there was nothing set in stone as to whom would run the business after the old man's death. Logically, one would have thought it would have been the son-in-law who had worked tirelessly for years, but it was not to be. Like the child in Solomon's tale, the business was halved. It apparently works for them, so we'll leave them at it.

*****

We see a sequel in the works. A son of the man who never worked in the family business returns to the area to work in his family's now splintered endeavor. He later decides to run for office and tells of how he sacrificed his own career to take over his grandfather's business. Never mind that it was really only half the business and that it wouldn't have been necessary if the families had only used some common sense. After all, it's a Netflix show, so we need all the drama we can get.

*****

If the ratings are good, we predict a second sequel about the old man's sociopathic nephews. Nothing brings in viewers like rape, robbery, and kidnapping.