Do you have a person in your life who, no matter how hectic and busy she gets, always seems to remember everyone's special events, everyone's birthday, the intimate details of your life? The kind of person who seems to put herself last and do everything she can to make sure they are taking care of everyone else?
One of them is my friend Linda.
My sister, when she would go on trips, would make sure to get little souvenirs for the people in her life. They were almost always something silly, and I am not a big souvenir person myself, so I usually didn't appreciate the little tchotchkes that she would pick up.
On her honeymoon to Disney, Jen got me a small, hard plastic, colander with a mickey-mouse pattern of holes and mickey-mouse ear handles. It was kinda ridiculous, as it was too small to hold a pound of pasta, and it was Disney-themed (I HATE DISNEY); but considering everyone else got customized Mickey Mouse ears with their names embroidered on it, I considered myself lucky. Jen must have thought to herself, "there's no way Cindy would want a pair of Mickey Mouse ears" (she was right) so even though I still thought it was a bit silly, I appreciated that she gave some thought to the souvenir this time. And, I guess even a small colander is useful.
When I moved into the new apartment, I found a good place to keep it, and I found that it was the perfect size for rinsing beans. So I started using it. To be honest, I don't even remember if I started using it before of after she died, but I used it.
I was having a particularly stressed-out and off day... I was agitated and jittery and particularly clumsy for some reason, and it was late and I was doing the dishes, and my slippery hands dropped the colander. It shattered and made a horrid, ear-piercing sound that sent the cats screaming and me to the floor.
I went completely hysterical, clutching the pieces of the broken colander and apologizing profusely to my sister for breaking it.
I went on crying for about an hour, all the while scouring the internet to replace it. They've been discontinued, and there was no hope of replacing it. I was inconsolable. I spent the next hour calming myself down, writing a couple of notes. I sobbed myself to sleep.
I told my friend Linda.
Last week was my birthday. Linda buys me a couple of gifts, one being a ukulele just to fuck with me (I have a notorious HATRED for ukeleles,) but underneath the ukelele, was a large, red, Mickey Mouse colander.
It turns out that right after we spoke, Linda also scoured the internet, and found that there were only a few that were for sale in England. She called a friend in England, told her the story, and had it delivered to her place. She and her friend had almost daily conversations in eager anticipation of this damned colander. It finally arrived, and her friend sent it off to the US. It gets caught up in customs, and finally arrives to Linda a day before my party.
I mean, WHO DOES THIS???
How did I get so lucky?
Everyone should be.
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