Releasing my anger

Well, I was faced with a situation tonight that led to immediate anger. It wasn't even all that life alteraing, but I got angry nonetheless...welcome to a Sophia moment...

Picture it, Guatemala, 2004...it was towards the end of the trip I had dragged myself and daughter through sweaty central america and I hadn't bought hardly a single souvenir for myself. Finally, there they are, the perfect gift for me - a set of 6 lovely vivid blue and multicolor (as things in Guatemala always are) placemats and napkins. I HAD to have them. Sure, I had seen tons of sets before, but these, oh these were just the right shade and coloring. So I haggled, as they do very well in central america, and bought them. I don't even recall the price, really - likely about 25 or 30 quetzales, which is just about $4US or so. Not a lot of money, but I was very happy with them. I had bought a purse in Flores, and now we were in Antigua, I bought the placemats. I later bought a large cloth, and a book cover and that was it. Lovely daughter had bought dozens of things for herself. Good for her. We were worried about weight on the small prop plane we returned to Flores on, so I packed all my souvenirs in my old purse (its a big purse) and lugged them onto the plane. I had bought a number of things for friends and family. They all made it back to Canada safely, so it should have been a happy ending...

think again. I had thought about not using the placemats, but then, I hate the thought of buying anything and putting it "away" for later. So I put them out. The very first meal we have on them, my lovely daughter spills a large quantity of gravy on hers. So, deep breath...I take it and rinse it in the kitchen sink and hang it on the back of the chair to dry. She hears me rant briefly about it, and UNDERSTANDS that the placemats are important to me. AT LEAST THATS WHAT I THOUGHT.

Today, this darling child feasts on lobster on our dining room table. I am not home, but at work. It's her birthday in a few days and dad sent her money which she bought herself a feast of lobster with since he isn't close by to take her out. Wonderful. what a lovely idea. Too bad she forgot to take the placemats off the table. They get downright filthy, apparently, as you can imagine what two young people are like with four lobsters in front of them...why not do what she had done her whole life of growing up with lobsters and spread newspapers over the table??? Or better yet, eat them outside on the patio table and then hose it off. But no, that was too much trouble. Instead, they spill water and lobster crap all over them and then thinks that the best solution is to take these placemats and fires them off into the laundry with a bunch of clothes before I get home from work....

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still am unaware. This darling child goes off to work in my car, I come home and notice the placemats are not on the table, but figure she just moved them off while they ate the lobsters on newspaper. After all, the table is cleared of everything, so it was a logical assumption. And as said previously, she has feasted on lobster every year of her life since she could chew it up, and it was ALWAYS ON NEWSPAPERS. I don't say anything to Brad, and hang out for a while before my friend comes over and we go out for shopping and a draft at Millers. Forward to me coming home and up the stairs to find Brad sitting on the edge of her bed, untangling something from darling child's clothing. I figure it is just the waistband of some underwear or a bra that has unravelled, like usual and wrapped itself into a knot on some piece of clothing.

I wish. Turned out to be the unravelling of my dear placemats. She had washed AND dried them in the dryer. There are threads everywhere as they unravelled from the abuse. They are faded and the blue color has run into the lighter colors, and they are shrunken to the size of napkins, or smaller. Brad looks helplessly at me, and asks me if I am going to lose it...I smile ever so sweetly and answer, OH YES, I AM. I call the darling child and chew her a new body cavity, and then get back to the placemats. He has managed to unleash the pair of pyjama pants they had tangled their unravelled selves up in and hands me the BALL of thread. I had to cut them apart and trim all the ends. It is a darn shame.

I have to wonder what possessed her to put them in the dryer, as she has seen me put our woven placemats (from Walmart or the Dollar store) hang on the drying rack in the basement for YEARS!!! And to add to it, when I cleaned the gravy off, she asked me how I did it and I told her I rinsed it in the sink because I didn't want to put them in the washer. Apparently I was tuned OUT that day.

Now I know that they are just material things, pieces of cloth, but for gawd's sake, I sweat my butt off on that trip and brought back very few souvenirs and now she has ruined one of them already. We haven't even been back a month yet.

But then I have to acknowledge a comment made by this darling child which puts it in another light..."I guess I just got you back for breaking my shotglass from the colliseum in Rome last year". Well, perhaps...but you ruined a set of 6 placemats, where I only broke 1 shotglass, and that was because you had it put next to the computer on an unsteady keyboard tray...comparable? good question.

I am left with one thought then, tonight...when is moving day again?