Door-sweep

At long last, after over two years, the bottom door-sweep on one of our French doors is replaced.
“Doncha mean Freedom doors?’” I ask.
A door sweep is a gizmo at the bottom of a door to keep out drafts.
In our case it’s plasticized rubber, and has four quarter-inch flaps that seal off the bottom of the door to the threshold.
The front door-sweep in the house where I grew up was spring-steel, or brass — it looked like brass.
Close the door and the sweep compressed against the threshold.
It made the door hard to open and close; you had to throw your hip into it.
A little over two years ago I noticed two of the quarter-inch flaps had torn off the sweep of the French-door we regularly open.
We removed the sweep and bought another, intending to replace it.
Months passed; soon it was winter.
Too cold to take the door down; our French doors seal off an unheated porch.
There was no sweep on that door the entire winter.
We scrunched a throw-rug against the door base to block the draft.
We were hoping to replace the door-sweep the following year, but again winter set in before we could get to it.
Replacing a door-sweep has to be wedged in amongst the blizzard of all-important medical appointments, errands, and lawn-mowing.
It looked like we’d be scrunching that throw-rug another winter.
But a window of time seemed to be opening, the hour I needed to replace the door-sweep.
The door had to be removed to replace the sweep.
You can’t just replace it with the door still hung.
Once replaced, the glue holding the new sweep had to set 16 hours, overnight.
Which meant one night of heating that unheated porch, although my wife hung a blanket over the opening.
But now it’s finally replaced; no more scrunched throw-rug.
Back to the door closing hard; it’s working that sweep.
Which is why it tore apart in the first place.
I wonder how long this sweep will last?

• “We” is me and my wife of almost 43 years, “Linda.”