Day 115

It has been a difficult week in regards to our Simple Year project.    I’ve had a couple of questionable transactions.  Wow, when written down that sounds pretty sordid…questionable transactions.

I will just go ahead and blurt out the first.  I bought both of the kids the yearly planners on their supply list that need to be purchased through the school.   It’s a spiral bound notebook calendar; imagine a Franklin Planner made by Fisher Price.  Anyway, I decided it was sort of consumable in that we would use it and recycle it away at the end of the year.  Although I know that I am potentially standing on a slippery slope, since if you used that mentality, pretty much EVERTHING is a consumable since we throw away LOTS of stuff.

But, I tell my kids no for many things these days and I decided that this would be an exception.  Although my youngest Kelsey had already brought home a blank notebook her teacher gave her that was left over from last year and told me to “make one” like it. I love that kid’s roll with it attitude and I appreciate that her teacher was rolling with it as well.

My fourth grader was a bit more, well….worried.  When she read it on the supply list, she wanted to know WHAT THE PLAN WAS.  It was actually causing her angst, and I get it.  The class was going to get that planner out at the end of every day and she was potentially going to be the kid with the slightly worn, hardly used spiral bound notebook.   (By the way, what IS the matter with a notebook to record your homework, etc.?)

So, I turned a blind eye and gave them each $5 for the notebooks.

The next transaction was sort of a surprise attack.  I really wanted to read, Escape From Camp 14, which is a new best seller.  Before the Simple Year if there was something I really wanted to read RIGHT NOW, I would buy it.   Instead, I WAITED and WAITED on the list at the library for six weeks before it became available.

And then a  glass of milk was spilled on it, nobody cried.  However, I did grouch at my kids for leaving a glass of milk on the coffee table where the dog could whip it over with his tail.

The book is an incredible account

post accident

Anyway, rather than return it to the drop box, I stopped in the library to explain.   Now, I have taken in other damaged items before and was expecting either a fine or even worse, librarian admonishment.  Instead, she takes a look at it, glances at the computer sort of clucks and says in a hushed tone, “oh, there are a lot of people waiting for this book.”  Then she proceeded to rummage around in her drawer, triumphantly pulled out a something small and black and without warning stamps this in about 10 places on the book.

No longer library property

Then she looks up and said, “that will be $27.”

Uh…

The moment slowed down, I basically had a fight or flight response. My pulse raced, I felt a thin sheen of sweat forming on my brow and I had the strong urge to bolt.   I figured I could outrun her, I wasn’t so sure about my six-year who old was with me.  Plus, she had my library card—so she could find me.

Inner conflict aside, I handed over the money.

As long as I am in full tilt confessional mode, I do have to admit that I fell off the wagon one other time.   While flying the friendly skies earlier on in The Simple Year, I had forgotten my headphones and I wanted to watch some movie which was so memorable, I don’t recall the name.

In any case, I FORGOT, and asked the flight attendant for headphones.  While she was gone, I remembered, but she was one of those folks that sometime during the Reagan administration, had sold her soul for free airfare to Barbados.  She was definitely one of those, I’m here for your safety, don’t bother me for a drink, kind of gals.  I was a bit afraid of her so when she showed up and barked, two dollars, I just handed over the money rather than admit I really didn’t want them and that she had to walk 25 feet to the galley for naught. I didn’t want her to get sky marshals involved.

There you have it, my Friday confessional.   I feel much better now.