How To Sew on A Button
A Flash Fiction by Dianne Bown-Wilson
Second Place: 2025 Hermit Crab Prize
(Excerpt from A Good Wife’s Guide to Domestic Harmony,
pub. 1952 reprinted 2024)
Establish what needs mending. Check the dirty laundry in the basket prior to doing a wash. Don your rubber gloves and be thorough; you will need to closely examine all of Husband’s garments from the previous days. You’ll easily spot a missing button on his best white office shirt worn at last night’s client dinner, but there’s no need for dismay. The remedy’s far less challenging than dealing with questionable stains.
Find a replacement button. The existing button is gone. Even if you question Husband to the extent of interrogation, he will not concede either to the act of losing it or the location of the loss*. You must find a solution! You could check the inner label for a spare (you’ll often find one there), but it’s generally far more satisfying to cleanly snip off a replacement from any other of Husband’s garments, taking a view about size.
Assemble your tools. You will need scissors, a needle, and your reading glasses (your clear-sightedness probably won’t be what it was). Make sure your implements are lethally sharp, especially the needle. You do not want to injure yourself as a result of unfortunate bluntness or undermine your handiwork by smearing Husband’s shirt with your blood.
Select an appropriate thread. Choose a cheerful colour to add a jaunty je ne sais quoi. You want this repair to be visible, to highlight what you can do. If you feel your role as a wife often goes unrecognised, this (and your choice of replacement button) is an opportunity to make your mark. When the decision’s made, pull off a good strand, thread it through the needle’s eye and knot the end to create a good anchor. (Having gone to all this trouble, you don’t want things to fall apart.)
Stab your needle repeatedly through the cloth. Speed and persistence are most efficacious. Watery eyes will blur your vision, so don’t let this occur. Focus unwaveringly on the holes in the button like a sharpshooter pinpointing a target; imagine your bullseye is your victim’s heart. If it helps, try thinking of a particular person – an individual who’s done you wrong? Putting a face (or name) to a problem invariably improves one’s aim.
Take time to admire your handiwork. Secure the stitching and cut the thread, then sit back and applaud what you’ve done. ‘Waste not, want not’ is a Good Wife’s mantra, and you’ve demonstrated just a little of what you’re capable of, proving you’re one of the best.
Return the garment to the closet. There’s no need to wash or iron it. A Good Wife is always modest, and you want your Husband to see and appreciate your accomplishment without you saying a word. He will understand the value of a life partner who understands and mends - whatever the challenge. A Good Wife never walks away.
* Don’t hark back to last month’s missing cufflink. He told you It Will Turn Up.
Author: Dianne Bown-Wilson grew up in New Zealand and now lives in Dartmoor National Park. Her work has won numerous awards and appears in anthologies. She has published two collections of her successful stories: Instructions for Living and Other Stories, and Degrees of Exposure. She is currently submitting her first novel.
Love it, especially the line, You do not want to injure yourself as a result of unfortunate bluntness or undermine your handiwork by smearing Husband’s shirt with your blood.
Brilliant!