Persistence

Today I am grateful for persistence.  Have you ever spent time with a toddler who wants something he/she should not have and they know they can’t have it, but they never, ever give up the fight?  When your spouse nods off during the squeaky-shoe-basketball game do you gently slide the remote out of his twitching arthritic hands no matter how long it takes, to change the channel without waking him up?  Do you continue to hold on to closets and closets full of “too big” or “too small” clothing, knowing in the bottom of your soul that if you get rid of them today, tomorrow you will need them?   Yeah, me, too.  That’s persistence.  Or insanity, but I’m going with the former.

Because our mail is in a locked box, we don’t collect it every day so sometimes we have a pretty big pile to go through.  If I’m lucky, Himself will go off and play amongst himself so I can immediately recycle the numerous clothing catalogues, the “as seen on TV” ads, and the countless HABAND packets that I get three times a week because I ordered something from them a year ago and now I’m their “most valuable customer!”  Swell.  I knew I’d get a title someday.

But I’m not always lucky enough to sort the mail alone.  Sometimes he stays.  Grrr.  He’s certain that Publishers Clearinghouse is going to show up at our door with a bouquet of flowers, catching me in my nightgown, as they pass me a check for ten million bucks!  I have to snatch that thing out of his hand before he orders every magazine published.  So far I’m still fast enough and he gives up pretty easily.

But a few weeks ago he got his hands on that HABAND packet before I could grab it.  Then he proceeded to do show & tell with every single piece-o-jim-crackie that they were offering.  “Lookit this!” he’d say with glee, over some gee-gaw or another.  “We need one of these!”  I’d tell him to throw it out.

“Oh man!  I’ve found it now!” he was vibrating like a kid at an ice cream parlor.  “This we really need to have.  It would be perfect for us and might even keep the squirrels off the deck.”  I could hardly wait.  He stared at the piece of paper with such love, like it was our wedding picture.  Ha-ha.

“Well what is it?” I asked.  He turned the paper around with great fan-fare so I could see the solar powered, glow-in-the-dark, yard owl.  Yeah, sign me up for a dozen.  We can stand them around like a vestal choir.  Maybe they have votive candles, too and we can set up a shrine on the patio.  Won’t the homeowners association love that?  “No!  Absolutely not!” I am a real kill-joy.

“Really?  Don’t you think they’re great?  Lookit how cool they look when they are glowing.  Wouldn’t it be nice to look out the bedroom window and see one out there?”  Persistence.  I warned you.

“No, it would be creepy!” I can be persistent, too.  “We are not wasting good money on that foolishness.”  I grabbed the rest of the packet and threw it in recycling.  Sometimes I gotta do it because he would spend our last dime on nonsense.  Game over!

Until today.  Guess what was hanging on the towel rack directly across from the toilet, when I rushed to the bathroom after running errands today?  Yup!  You guessed it.  Good thing I was already where I was because I laughed so hard tears ran down my cheeks!  He gets points for creativity.  That kind of persistence might pay off. . .just this once!  Might.