Boundaries are hard to define in a family. With eight children and a few long term visitors, my friend’s husband admitted to securing his hairbrush to the bathroom faucet with a chain, like banks do with pens. Asking forgiveness over permission is often the rule in a home.
Before legally licensed, my son Hot Wheelz borrowed our car, running a stop sign across the street and receiving a $100 bill for joy riding. That was AFTER he got the clutch thing-y down. Only days before he had lurched forward in the old stick-shift Vanagon and transformed the free-standing garage frig into a built-in. Coco opened my sparsely populated jewelry box without asking and wore the only piece of authentic jewelry I own, a single strand of pearls. She once borrowed a pair of shoes, and lost one. How do you lose one shoe? Cheezy thought I wouldn’t miss the Love Actually DVD from my collection and the GAP took possession of my large ice chest and never returned it. (She actually brought it over filled with drinks to the Bug’s birthday bash, thinking it was hers.) Then foolishly thinking my lot in distribution would change as an empty-nester, just last week, Couponman ate the piece of carrot cake I’d carried from the restaurant and stored in the frig for another day.
So today I got even – sort of. I left the house in a black sweater I didn’t own, wore a pair of pants I salvaged from my daughter’s Good Will bag, dumped my purse contents into a more fun looking one that Coco had brought over during her last move, wore Hot Wheelz’ sunglasses he forget when he returned to Utah, and drove Couponman’s car to work. Possession is 99% of the law.
“You look good,” my co-worker announced as I came through the door today. “But I didn’t know you drank.”
“I don’t,” I said. What do you mean?”
“You’ve got a beer opener on your keychain,” he announced.
“I wondered why it had that funny looking opening,” I said. “Someone left it at the house. It had such a cute little flashlight on it that I hooked it onto my key necklace.” (I have a key necklace, because I tend to sit key rings down, never to be found again.)
Oh, well. You get what you pay for.
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Oh, boy, can I identify! After our camping trip with kids and grandkids this summer, I fear our air mattresses, sleeping bags and flashlights will never surface. To me, it’s a small price to pay for family togetherness, but my husband tends to grumble about it. I guess I need to get a Sharpie and write our name LARGE on everything that belongs to us. It could be our version of your friend’s hairbrush chain.
Those sound like cool things you laid possession of. The only thing I can remember inadvertently possessing that would even come close to fitting me was the neighbor’s tampoline. You may ask how that came about. Go ahead. Ask.
We have those high canyon winds here in Utah where we live. One big wind picked and cart-wheeled the tramp from their backyard and 3 houses down and landed on my roof. It fit just fine. I called her and told her if possession was 9/10th of the law I now owned her tampoline. (They came and took it away ~ darn!) I could have used that tramp to try to get down to a size I could maybe have shared somebody elses clothes around here.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
That’s a really funny story. Too bad it’s not mine. It would have made a great post!
I feel your pain! 4 months since Amara’s birthday party and I’m still waiting for the kids to get everything out of my garage. May still be there when we need it next year!
That is so funny that you didn’t recognize the beer opener! I laughed out loud! (I wouldn’t have known either, so now it’s your turn: hahahha) I couldn’t even count the number of dishes, VHS tapes, and utensils that went missing forever into (BYU apartments most likely) when I had kids living in my Orem home–especially after I left to teach in AZ. I think I bought like 5 Revere “wok’ pans and at least 7 Swiffers, also, those years!