Denyhilation

Lately, I have been observing – and yes, reporting with regularity to my husband -  something I like to call, “denyhilation.” This is the act of denying one's irresponsibility to the point of annihilating the potential credibility and solid relationships necessary for a peaceful existence...here....and now....on this ever evolving and sometimes ridiculous planet called Earth.

For if a person wishes to be taken seriously, or a person wishes to be trusted, or a person simply wants others to believe he or she holds a shred of honesty, they hands down, without a doubt, with complete and utter totality MUST be honest about the trivialities, the little things, the small stuff, that which will never matter five years from now.  And in this way, we build the likelihood that the big things, the real crimes, the shocking and sometimes gritty and putrid acts, will also come to surface as bearing truthful admission.

If I still remain ambiguous at this point, let me specify with the realities of my own world and see if they relate to yours.

First, at least five times out of the last ten days, the exterior door of our home was left wide open for the Autumn air to intrude with a bitter and chilling blast. Literally, someone just walked in and walked away from an open door despite the fact that the furnace was running due to uncomfortably cold temperatures. But “intrusion” is so unfair a word when that nasty wind was granted full access to my home while no one was there to stop it. Don't blame the wind. Blame the thoughtless person who left the door wide freaking open.

Secondly, it is the end of October, thus the avalanche of candy consumption is upon us. This means an insidious and filthy habit will encroach upon my home – annually – almost likened to the last pine needle I will vacuum from the room which held that glorious Christmas tree 4 months prior – and this vermin will collect and blow about the floors of my home as if I am the only resident there with the gift of sight. This very embarrassment of which I speak is, simply,  the empty and wrinkled, albeit still shiny but partial candy wrapper. Combine all candy wrappers with the open doors and we have a mass of what I now term “the sticky tumbleweed.”

Finally, and this may be so rare that perhaps it truly doesn't happen anywhere but in my own home; however, in my house, things go missing. These missing items are not to be confused with those things that have been misplaced and will one day be found on the very same premises. I'm not discussing absentmindedness. I'm talking about nothing short of what appears to be an alien abduction of certain belongings, the very same belongings that have remained in the same place since the dawn of man. Then...suddenly....gone. The sticky tumbleweeds have not left, but jewelry, flashdrives, clothing and medicine have.

What do I do? I go through a series of responses.

First, I breathe a long and deep sigh of exhaustion. The situation, you can imagine I am sure, is tiresome.

Next, I wrestle with a very real conundrum. If I say nothing, it will build with the pressure of a volcano and likely emerge in the shape of a headache or a cold or a twitching facial muscle about which my students love to rudely and obviously whisper. If I say something, I first have to determine to whom and when and this requires further thought about identifying the possible deviant wicked culprit. Oh, was that redundant? Excuse my passion for investigation and an eternal search for justice. Thus, I delay the inevitable and necessary question, “Who did this?”

Finally, I cannot bear it another moment. I am powerless over my obsessive need to determine the scandalous criminal and the aforementioned inquiry bursts from my mouth typically with the tone of annoyance layered with a film of bitter resentment: “Who did this [VILE DEED]?”

The answer comes with repetitious predictability: “Not I!”

Uh-huh. To be sure, I am consequently and fantastically insane.