I have a habit of naming things. And...not things that are normal. I tend to get attached to material things--things that shouldn't even matter. I have a difficult time with change, and sometimes the threat of change makes me get more attached to things than normal. (And by normal, I mean normal for me--not for most of you.) For example, the husband has been talking about trading in my car. It's a 2003. I almost totaled it one time. I've been driving it for a long time. It has some problems--something is wrong with its electric stuff--half the dash doesn't light up, the horn honks randomly when the car is in park, and there are other fun things. Over time, like cars always do, the car is getting to be more trouble and costing more money. Most people would say, "yes, let's trade it in," but I can't do that. For whatever reason, I feel like the car will feel bad if I trade it in. And what has it ever done to me? Nothing. In fact, I almost killed it! So anyway, with the threat of great change, of trading my friend car in for a newer model, I named the car Martha. And now that Martha has a name, I am having even more trouble coming to terms with the fact hat she may need traded in for something more reliable soon.
That was example one. Perhaps that' s not so terrible--but wait. There's worse. Around the time when we got Herbie, we decided to get a new couch randomly one day while out shopping. (All our large purchases around here are rather unplanned and spontaneous.) Anyway, being that we already had a couch (a very old, crappy couch) in the house, I felt a bit bad about getting rid of it. Him, I should say. "Buttons" the couch was named when we got the new one and kicked buttons out into the garage. Herbie, our tiny tiny puppy, proceeded to rip Buttons to shreds, and I felt bad about poor Buttons. So bad that I HAVE A BUTTON FROM THE COUCH PINNED TO A BULLETIN BOARD in the house still. Buttons lives on, and I have issues.
Not bad enough? Here's the last one. When we moved here, our bathroom was totally pink. Disgustingly pink. Like Pepto Bismol vomited all over our bathroom. Pink sink, pink tub, pink toilet, pink walls. Utterly horrifying. One evening during the summer, we decided we were done with our gross-looking bathroom and gutted it. I felt bad about the toilet. I'm telling you, I HAVE PROBLEMS. I felt bad as I posted it on Craigslist, I felt bad as it sat in the garage, I felt bad when it sat in our lawn the night we took it out of the house. It wasn't just any pink toilet either--it was a pink toilet with a WOODEN LID that pinched your behind because it was cracked. Now, someone please explain to me WHY I cared? I don't know. At any rate, as the pink toilet was being removed from our house, I named it "Percy." And we still talk about Percy and refer to it as Percy to this day.
Now before you threaten to put me on Hoarders, know that I am aware of my strange issues with attachment and assigning human feeling to objects and that I get rid of things all the time. No joke. Just things that I have to get rid of that signal large changes in life in some way--even though they are usually good!--give me a little trouble.
I guess that will matter when I'm dead.