Sick ramblings on lost things

My head is full of snot and Mucinex so I am not really certain I can make a coherent sort of post. It took me three tries to just write that sentence, so I am guessing that this will be a challenge to say the least. I like a challenge though, so onward!

Sunday afternoon we had a meeting at my house for the upcoming faire season. I am part of the character staff and we had to go over some exercises and make a few changes to the curriculum. My partner in costuming showed up a few hours early in hopes that we could get some costuming business taken care of, but I was busy trying to cook. We just talked instead, which is always nice.

As we were talking we somehow came across the topic of things we collect. I mentioned that I collect snowglobes, though I don't really ever tell anyone about that. The thing is when you collect something people want to give you that thing. If it is a very common object then it takes no time at all to be surrounded by the thing to the point it is no longer desirable. I don't want that to happen with my snowglobe collection.

Also there is the fact that I am very particular about the snowglobes I collect. I find some styles very appealing, but I find that there are far more that I absolutely hate. I am afraid that if I say, ohh I collect snowglobes, then I will not only get them from everyone, but I will get ones that I hate.

There is nothing worse than getting a present that someone is so excited you will love, and then you hate it. At that point you can smile and lie and say you love it, but then what? I mean do you throw it away? Do you regift it? Do you shove it in a closet and forget about it? Do you put it on display in the one spot in the house you will never have to see it? I suppose it all depends on who gave it to you.

I have employed all of these methods and not just on snowglobes. I never want to hurt the feelings of the gifter. They always mean well, and it is the thought that counts right? Well that is what my mother always told me so we will go with it.

Anyways, I was telling her about my collection and pointed out one of my favorite pieces. Years ago I bought a snowglobe from the Disney store, right about the time that most of their physical locations were closing. It was really expensive even on sale, but I bought it as a birthday present to myself. The piece was a Winnie the Pooh globe. It was a large life preserver ring with S.S. Pooh written on the side, and then inside of it was water and a little dock and a big tree over the dock. There was a classic style Pooh, Eyeore, and Tigger on the dock, and then in a little ship in the water was piglet. The globe itself was only over Piglet and his ship.

I love Winnie the Pooh, especially the classic look, and I love snowglobes. This was sort of an obvious choice. I brought it home and placed it on the counter by our back picture window. The piece is really heavy and had rubber stoppers on the bottom so it was really difficult to slide around. I figured it would be safe there even from the cats who love to shove things off of the counters.

I probably shouldn't have said all of this to my friend. I shouldn't have said it was one of my favorite pieces. I shouldn't have said I didn't worry about the cats knocking it off because it was too heavy for them to just idly bump into and send to its doom. Murphy's law or some such nonsense you know?

Monday I came home and the cats had done just what I said they couldn't do. After five years of that snowglobe sitting in one spot unmoved, the cats shoved it off the counter and onto the floor. It apparently hit tree first, because the tree shattered into a million tiny pieces. Tigger was also broken off and into several pieces. There is no salvaging it.

To say I was angry is an understatement. I chased the cats around screaming at them in a rather irrational manner. I contemplated throwing the lot of them into the cold garage as punishment. I contemplated just throwing them all out of the house and being done with them. I instead cleaned up the mess and consoled myself with pizza.

Now that a few days have passed since the death of my snowglobe I have realized a few things. First, I am really attached to my stuff. Not all of my stuff, but certainly a good amount of my stuff. I think that this is probably not a good thing. It is only stuff. It can be replaced most of the time, and if it can't then it can't. I enjoyed it while I had it, but it isn't like I can't find something else I enjoy.

The other thing I have realized is that my friends and family are wonderful. The first response to seeing my distress at the loss of a prized possession, all they could do was try and replace it as quickly as they could.  They didn't care that the item hasn't been made in years, and is hard to find now, and possibly pretty expensive. All they cared about was making me happy again.

I win.