Why? I'll tell you why. Recently, my parents had my room repainted and ripped up the carpet, which basically meant unloading drawers to move furniture and uncovering all my life secrets in one fell swoop. Nothing was said about my diaries full of freakishness (not angst, just odd stuff you'd read and be like "daaamn, this girl needs help")/78 Duracells from 3 faulty vibrators/printed out AIM conversations between me and Christina being heinous (yet hilarious) bitches and hating on everyone. But my mom recently wanted to find my Bat Mitzvah tape to put it on DVD. I told her exactly where it was- in my money box.
Let's take a left here on Digression Lane. All Jew jokes aside (I will slice you), I was the most miserly little troll of a child. I had a bank account as soon as I amassed the $25 necessary to open one, but I kept my cash in this old wooden tea box that I had 'creatively' covered in taped-on metallic silver tissue paper and bendy metallic straw things with stars on them. Most Sundays, after a rough weekend of ballet, Snick and Hebrew school I'd decompress by dumping the box on the floor and...shame shame...meticulously count my money. Like a Gringotts goblin. Well, as time went by I had more important things to do on Sunday afternoons (binge eat string cheese and Campbell's soup, write amateur porn stories, get in hours-long fights on AIM with my girlfriends) and although I still kept money in that box, it began to house other things. Gift cards. My awesome mini Barbie stereo that still to this day plays a fly beat when you drop it. And...First Response pregnancy tests. Errrrrooooo (sound of music screeching to a halt). What, Allison? You've taken a pregnancy test? You store them in a metallic-covered wooden tea box next to a gift card to Tower Records worth $11.87 (money I will NEVER see again, thanks Chapter 11)?
Quick mid-digression digression: Never in my life have I had unprotected sex. Never has my period been a minute late. YET one time my boobs were randomly sore so I bought a 3-pack of First Response. Used another when every morning for a week I mysteriously felt ill. Which leaves the remaining soldier in my money box, which mom naturally stumbled upon when looking for, of all things, the video of her precious, tick-having (at the time!), braces-wearing, awkward as fuck yet 2% adorable in a sad way daughter reading the Torah.
AS IF THAT DOESN'T HURT MY HEART ENOUGH. What else do I store in my money box? A whole lotta Bob. In high school we constantly went to this diner with paper place mats filled with advertisements, and we always made fun of the business card for this realtor, Bob S (I'll leave out his last name because I don't want him Googling himself, reading this, and being afraid of me), because he looked like a raging serial killer. I'm talking bald, angry eyes, unprofessional denim shirt, faded background like a mug shot...and anyway, in my weird, almost-autistic yet slightly-quirky/adorable teenagerness, I thought it would be a hoot to rip them out and collect them. Just because it was random and in high school random people are funny. Right? RIGHT?
Well I had completely forgotten about my Hope Chest o'Bob until, finding my money box, remembering mom looking through it and feeling a strange sense of dread, I opened it and imagined my mom's thought process, which come on, is only natural:
"My name is Shelley. My daughter is stalking a middle-aged real estate agent who looks like that clown rapist you accidentally hired for your 5-year-old's party and you hyperventilated when you saw him on the news. And it appears he might have gotten her pregnant. And why did I EVER buy her this God-awful Barbie boom box?"
If I was my daughter I'd be massively disappointed in me.
I still haven't thrown away the business cards. My heart beats only for you, Bob <3
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