I Want My Blankie!

I don't consider myself a materialistic person. My car is almost ten years old, I have shoes that are even older, and I don't own a piece of jewelry any self-respecting burglar would want to steal. If I get a little crazy about any of my possessions, it has to have something beyond monetary value. It has to have sentimental value. I guess that was why I was more upset that one of my Italian ceramic salad servers fell on the floor and shattered then I was when our son dented our car. Or why I went into a prolonged funk when I realized I had accidentally deleted a special photo of my husband, brother-in-law (seen once every two or three years), and son making music in the basement. It's all about the memories attached to an object.And I don't take it very well when one of those objects bites the dust.

The latest loss happened the other night. This time it was a comforter, a $6 garage sale purchase that quickly became our go-to picnic blanket. We shuttled it back and forth between our family room and the back of my car for years. We played games on it, we ate Chinese food on it, we cuddled under it. We took it to the beach, to concerts, to the park. In twenty years we put so much mileage on that tufted piece of material that the cars and trucks that decorated it had to have their tires replaced. In short, it was well-loved and full of memories.

And now it's gone, thrown out by one of our daughter's careless ex-boyfriends. I'd been asking her about it for months but by the time she got around to asking her ex about it, he sheepishly admitted that he thought it had been junked the last time his family cleaned out the garage. It never ceases to amaze me how someone can randomly make a decision about an item's value without consulting the owner. How easy it would have been for him to call first or drop it off on our doorstep instead of pitching it without consideration of the years of memories wrapped up in that dusty, old blanket.

I know I still have the memories. I know I shouldn't take the loss of a stupid blanket so seriously. I know I can find another comfortable garage sale bargain.

But it won't make me smile every time I look at it.