American Girl

She waits another week to fall apart...

About me

American girls are weather and noise....

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace. ~ Thomas Paine

When the stress of my current situation finally does me in, or maybe when I open my big snarky mouth to the wrong person for the last time, people are going to be left wondering about my top drawer.

It's the Altoids.  Stacks upon stacks of little canned mints.  Every flavor out there.  It's something I didn't really give a lot of thought to until, while fishing in there for a Post-It  note to write something down for someone at work, he got a glimpse of the sea of circles and casually said "Um, do you have a mint?" at which point I told him to STFU and get out of my office.  Yeah, snarky mouth AND an unjustified defensiveness about the curiously strong mints in my top drawer.  Aren't I a catch?

There's a little market that I pass each morning that sells cherries outside and they're sooo good.  Watermelon too.  All on ice in little plastic containers.  Nice.  But one day I didn't feel like fruit because it was one of those mornings after we had Italian food from the local restaurant that makes THE best garlic bread on earth.  The garlic bread is so good but you still feel like you're tasting it the next day, no matter how many times you brush your teeth and gargle with Listerine.  Totally gross, but worth it.

Anyway, it was a day like that that I discovered that the cost of a can of Altoids, peppermint, plus a 20 ounce bottle of caffiene free Diet Coke = a number that makes me think of my brother.  And whenever said number pops up, I feel like it's a message directly from him, floating down to say "Yep, I'm here, just checking in."  When you have nothing solid, it's these little emotional straws you grasp at that get you through.  And they always seem to hit when you need them the most.  Sometimes you'll just be standing in place wondering how you'll even go on, and the number will pop up in some unexpected way and you'll just be ok.  And by "you" I mean "me".

So sometimes I just need that boost.  Sometimes I want to say "Hi" back.  Sometimes I just need to feel the connection.  Maybe sometimes I even just want a mint - but if that were the case I could just open my top drawer and pick on - but what's the fun in that?

So I'm here to tell you that my top drawer is full of Altoids because I'm a tiny little bit crazy, or something.  I obviously can't consume a whole tin of mints in a day, so - ok out with it.  Every day.  Every single day I absolutely NEED to buy new Altoids and a 20 oz caffiene free Diet Coke, or I'm just not right.    So when I'm gone and they go through my desk and wonder, someone here can explain, and then on my headstone it won't have to say "At least she had fresh breath".  Not that I'm going anywhere anytime soon, of course.  I didn't mean for that to sound dismal.  That just hints at my next problem.  I can't ever throw them away.  How can you throw something like that? 

I'm going to be Ross and Monica's Nana, but instead of Sweet and Low, someday someone is going to clean out my closet and out will pour thousands upon thousands of Altoid tins.  My legacy.

posted by: AmericanGirl at 11:03 | link | comments (8) |