It's Just Stuff

This week I had a little problem with how my husband handled the disappearance of one of his possessions. No, a thief didn't invade the sanctity of our home in the middle of the night, our daughter "borrowed" something without his permission and he tends to frown on that sort of behavior. I thought his reaction was a little over the top, seeing that he hadn't used the said object (a keyboard that had been packed up and relegated to a storage spot in the living room) for months and hadn't noticed that it was missing until days after the fact. I saw his side of it but still felt uneasy about the importance he had placed on a "thing".

Not long after the piano incident, I shuffled down to the basement to raid the freezer for one of those big, beautiful Costco muffins that had been living there since my last trip to the warehouse. They make you buy a dozen of those suckers, so it's not unusual for several to take up prolonged residence in the freezer until I'm struck by the need for a muffin fix. So, there I was, ready to devour a streusel-topped pumpkin muffin with a hot cup of tea when, much to my dismay, there were none to be found. Once again, my daughter had been the culprit. Frustrated (and forced to substitute a stale cinnamon bagel in its place), I called my daughter's cell and left an impassioned plea to never take the last of anything without asking and, if she couldn't stop herself, at least leave me a note admitting her crime.

Lest you think I'm some kind of muffin fanatic who goes ballistic over the absence of a baked good, I should mention that my kid's been guilty of quite a bit of pilfering these days. When I last went to have a Pepsi with my pizza - gone. When I reached into my make-up bag for foundation - gone. When I went to wear that cute black shirt with the ruffles - gone. She's not around much but when she is, stuff seems to disappear.

I finally joined my husband (with my stale bagel and tea) to watch The Avengers. As I groused about the disappearance of my beloved muffin and how ticked off I was at our resident thief, he looked at me and smiled. "It's only a thing," he said.

How dare he repeat my words of wisdom at a time like this.