Requiem for an ironing board

After nearly four decades of service, our ironing board was put out to pasture. We felt sad about it, too. The last cover that we bought was from Target and had giant chartreuse polka dots on a periwinkle-blue background. Rust from the sole plate of our ancient steam iron ended the useful life of that pad, so out it went along with the ironing board. It's true; they just don't make them like they used to: new ones lack gravitas in every sense of the word, and everything about them, even the best we could find is much flimsier. The best we could find happened to be yet another Michael Graves product from Target. We bought an eight-dollar cheapie steam iron (Rival brand; didn't that outfit used to make electric can-openers?). When there's a minute, we'll acquire another old-fashioned heavy steam-iron like the first Sunbeams, courtesy of the Vermont Country Store. When we were looking for the iron, we found the same soap-saver that HHH used for washing dishes. We used to beg to get to swish it around in the water hot from the teakettle brought to a boil on the woodstove.