JHC

There is a phrase that I will occasionally use when I am mightily peeved, the center word of which is Horatio. I am feeling it now, because this has been a most disappointing afternoon. Which is remarkable, because the day started so well.

We drove down to Maryland, pretending that it was just a casual drive, nothing more, but which we both knew was so that we could try a restaurant in Frederick of which we'd heard good things: a simple place with great hamburgers. But Frederick's about an hour and fifteen minutes away, which is way too far to go for a hamburger. But if we just happened to come across it while out for a casual drive.... And after coming within a half block of missing it, we did come across it. And the burgers were good. Not great, though -- I know of two local places that do better, easily. When we were leaving the restaurant, it started to rain, heavily, so that we were both fairly sodden by the time we got back to the car. But still, the drive back was pretty nice, even if we did appear to be escorting the storm back to Pennsylvania.

When we got back to the house, we checked email to see if the offspring's summer camp had been moved indoors, which they do when the weather is poor. They had. My wife went to get her, and I elected to stay home. They needed to buy some more gear for the color guard, including two ball caps (guard just needed one, but the daughter saw another that she really liked). When they came home, I gave the daughter a small notecard holder that I'd had for some years, because my wife said that she needed one; seeing her reaction, I gave her both that I'd had, and she seemed pleased.

Later, we went out to a commercial laundry place so that we could wash two large things: the electric blanket for our bed, and the tarp we'd used while painting. No, I don't know why we needed to have a clean, paint-spattered tarp, either. But we did. Just prior to going out, my wife mentioned that she'd come across the daughters old library card, and asked if she should give her grief about it, since it had apparently been in her old backpack for two years. No, I said, just toss it, don't even mention it. (It was at that point that I should have felt the pricking of danger.) When we were leaving, my daughter said that, OBTW, there was an optional color guard practice that she wanted to go to. Even with the rain? I asked, and she nodded, saying that in that case, they'd just do it indoors. But as we were leaving, she expressed surprise at the rain, wondering if they would, in fact, have it. More prickling.

We got to the school, and nope, no one else there, so I dropped my wife off and brought the daughter back home where, as she was getting out of the car, she mentioned that she liked that note card holder -- and, oh yeah, she'd given the other one to my mother. Why? She looked at my expression and muttered that she thought my mother could use it. I said some fairly stern things, mad not so much for what she did with it -- it was, after all, logically hers at that point -- but just because it felt as if she'd given away something of mine. Which I knew, even then, was unreasonable. Tell my mother you're back, I said, as she was closing the car door. I then went out to collect my wife and the now clean materials.

When I got back, my daughter handed me the other notecard holder. I thought you said my mother wanted it, I asked, querulously, and she said I thought you wanted it back. So we talked, and I told her why I had been irritated, and that she could do whatever she wanted with it. And, OBTW, you remember your old library card that we could never find? She jumped right up and said Wow, I still want it! Don't bet on it, I told her; I told your mother to just trash it. Only, as it turns out, she hadn't just trashed it; she'd shredded it -- and then trashed the shreddings. Which are now in a bag out by the curb, getting rained on. And my wife came in, quite steamed, saying that if I'd said to not even mention it, why did I tell the daughter -- who now thinks her mother is unfeeling for shredding her old library card?

And now I'm sitting here, wondering if I should go out and pull those trash bags back in out of the rain and look through the garbage for the shredded blue remnants of a library card.

JHC.