I had to sneak up on Mom to take this picture....
One should always keep kids around -- if only for their occasionally brilliant insights into human behavior and psychology. Tonight after a quick dinner of Chinese takeout (a much-appreciated dinner of chinese takeout -- I'm in no condition to cook tonight...), George informed me that he was going to start stocking up on all the little packets of soy and duck sauce. I am aware that young boys can start some bizarre collections -- rocks, sticks, lint, chewed gum -- but still I had to ask him just what he was planning to do with a soy/duck sauce collection. He told me that he thought that he should save it all just in case we found somebody who needed it but couldn't afford it right now because of the storm. "So you are afraid that people may have lost their duck sauce because of Hurricane Katrina, George?" "Oh, Mom! You're so silly! Of course they lost their duck sauce! They lost everything..." Right. Silly me. "So, George, how many people do you think will ask for soy or duck sauce anyway?" "Oh - they probably won't ask. I'm sure that they have been to other places to get stuff and they did not have any soy or duck sauce - so they would think that we don't either... So we will have to tell them we have it - just in case."
Ahem. In case anyone is in dire need of chinese food condiments -- we have about 6 packets of soy and duck sauce for you.
Seriously though - there was a lot of wisdom to be gained from this little exchange with George tonight. I had been thinking today as Mom and I packed boxes from lists of needs from our fellow Katrina sufferers about how quick we are to decide what another person 'needs' or does not need. Of all people - I should know better. I remember in those terrible and dark days following Katrina being afraid to tell people what I needed most... Hoping that someone out there would just do something crazy and guess. I remember hearing from a lot of people what I did not need -- hearing lots of different definitions of 'need' versus 'want'.
If you wanna get technical about it -- all any of us really 'need' is some clean water, a scrap of stale bread, and a cardboard box to get out of the rain.
My sheets don't 'need' to match and I don't 'need' a shirt that has all its buttons or a pair of pants without ink stains on the behind. I don't 'need' curtains at the windows - nor do I 'need' real plates off of which to eat dinner. If I stay in this mindset for long - I start to wonder why we were so quick to try to repair our house... We don't 'need' the extra bathroom so perhaps we should just leave it as it is. We don't 'need' finished floors... the concrete kept us off the ground. We don't 'need' a washer or dryer or a dishwasher -- these are all modern conveniences. We don't 'need' to paint the walls. We don't 'need' furniture. We don't 'need' much at all. Yeesh, what were we worried about again?
I was doing it today myself, much to my own shame: "It doesn't matter if the sheets match - at least they'll have sheets..." Sigh. I'm so sorry.
I remember clearly the depression I felt for days when I had returned, elated, from a distribution center at a local church just a couple of weeks after Hurricane Katrina because someone there had noticed that I had a newborn and handed me a pretty little journal for new mothers tied up with a pretty pink ribbon. It was a big deal for me... something personal.. something frivolous... something from better times - times before the storm... I brought it all to my empty, dusky home and sat down to claim the book as my own- but then I read: "To Patti, Love Katherine". My heart sank as I flipped through the pages finding handwritten entries throughout... Patti obviously had a lot of time on her hands. All of my daydreams about some benevolent soul out there who had thought to herself "I bet there is a poor new mother down there - forgotten and downtrodden... This will cheer her up..." were shattered. It was a used and cast away book. Unwanted. Thoughtless. Someone else's trash. I can barely describe how much it hurt me that day. Ah - but what did it matter? I didn't 'need' it anyway.
Yes. It really does matter if the sheets match. It matters unless YOU tell me you don't care if they match. If YOU say you need blue sheets with yellow stripes -- who am I to tell you otherwise?
Maybe you need some soy sauce too... I know someone who can hook you up.
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