perfect thread scissors

For a few years, I owned a great little pair of tiny scissors, the kind you use to pull out a seam. They are about the same size as manicure scissors but the blades are different. They were very handy and wonderful.  I don't remember why I had them but for awhile, I used them a lot.  I don't remember doing much sewing so I don't understand why I valued these scissors.  I was living in Amherst, MA during my happy times with these scissors, which means my daughter was in College at Simon's Rock.

She came home from college, probably because the campus closed down, because otherwise she did not like to visit me. And she asked to use my scissors.  I resisted. I said "I have a feeling that if you use them, you will lose them.  You tend to lose my things."

A passive aggressive thing?  or was she stealing? which is not very passive aggression. At the time, I thought she lost my things because of thoughtlessness, not intention. But who knows?

I gave in. She used the scissors. And they disappeared. I never found them and I combed my home.

Life is full of mysteries.

She told me, during the same years I lived in Amherst, which was only two years, that she used to steal money from me when we still lived in Minneapolis. I always emptied my pockets on the counter by the phone on the main floor.  I did vaguely note, back then, that I seemed to run out of money. I gave her spending money.  It never occurred to me that she stole. I wonder why she confessed? Did she want to hurt me by telling me she was untrustworthy? Was she warning me?

When she first came to Amherst from college, she helped herself to things around my home that she needed, like my hair dryer. Then I would go to use whatever she had taken and only find out that it was gone when I needed it. So I sternly forbid her from taking my stuff.

Then she actually needed a hairdryer and I told her to take mine and she said 'But you told me not to take your stuff" and I said "I meant don't take my stuff without asking, without telling, ask. I am telling you you can take my hairdryer."

It seems so easy to get a new hairdryer, right?  I don't remember why but I ended up replacing the hair dryer I gave Rosie on that visit from a shop in the Port Authority in New York City. Amherst is not a retail mecca. NYC was only a few hours away. I went into the city from Amherst frequently, to soak up the art museums. All my life, I had read reviews of art in NY City museums. And I visited NYC before I lived in Amherst, of course. I have visited NYC many times. But having those museus right there was wonderful.

Once, on my first Thanksgiving in Amherst, someone at dinner mentioned the Rothko show was closing that weekend. I took the train to NYC the next day, and returned to Amherst on the same day, just to see the Rothko. It was worth spending the day on that train. And I think that is the trip I bought the hairdryer.  I remember working through the Port Authority and scanning the stores, remembering I needed a hair dryer. It seemed like my best shot to get a hair dryer, even though, I imagined, I was going to pay a little more. By the time I spent some gas to drive somewehre in Amherst or, more likely, Connecticut where there was a mall and a Target, I might just as well spend the extra bucks for the prices in the Port Authority. I would pay for convenience, I reasoned.

I still have that hairdryer, actually.  My kid has not entered my home in almost ten years so she hasn't stolen anything since then but my heart and mind.