Someone asked in comments last week how my clawfoot tub ended up in the hardware store parking lot, and it was then I realized that I never told y'all about my clawfoot tub in the first place.
The Magnificent Greg, the bestest of my best friends, gifted me a clawfoot tub last spring. (Incidentally, this gift is not why Greg's the bestest of my best friends--he's held that status for at least a couple of years before the bathtub.) Greg lives in a pre-Civil War commercial building in downtown Lexington. The first floor is retail space, and the upstairs is a very cool-looking apartment. This building, during the Civil War, was the headquarters of Confederate General Sterling Price, which I believe adds something to Greg's general aura of awesomeness. Anyway, Greg decided to remodel said apartment and get rid of his little clawfoot tub. So, being the bestest of my best friends, he immediately called me and asked if I wanted it. For free. After I came to after passing out at the thought of such a generous gift, I said yes. (Of course I said yes--who wouldn't?!) I didn't have room for the bathtub at my house last spring, and the ginormous bathroom remodel is still a year or so away, so the people who remodeled Greg's apartment agreed to keep the tub for me. They were in the process of their own giant remodeling project--turning a former car dealership into a hardware store--so they set the tub on a wooden pallet in the parking lot of the store.
And there it's been for months and months. I go by and visit it every couple of weeks and tell it that I'm taking it home soon, very soon, just as soon as I can find enough people to haul the thing to my house. Yesterday before I left for work I thought I'd go by and take a photo of the bathtub to show you how lovely it is. It's a 4-foot-long vintage cast iron tub with big claw feet and right now it's painted a sort of juniper green on the outside.
And....the tub is gone. Nowhere to be found. I'm hoping they've just moved it to inside storage. I'm hoping they didn't think I abandoned the tub. I'm hoping it's not now in someone else's house, or listed on eBay, or--horrors!--in someone's yard filled with dirt and mums. That's what I'm hoping. Because if it turns out that I've lost my free clawfoot tub due to carelessness and neglect, then I will need one of you to kick me right in the hiney.