Retaliation

My Facebook status read:

Hey WonderWife™, that thing with the glitter....? Nicely played. I hate you for it, but nicely played. 

Earlier that day, WonderWife™ and I had what we’ll call a domestic squabble. It was a very rare occurrence for us, a couple that prides themselves on how little they fight. (A stark contrast to my parents, who I lovingly refer to as “The Costanzas”…but that’s another post for another time.) The fracas wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. At the core of it, a difference of opinion. It was the kind of row that all married couples have at some point in their relationship. But there was some anger. And by some, I mean a lot. Pointed directly at me. By her. All day I could feel her silently seething in my direction, the quiet aftermath of the initial battle.

I shrewdly decided to keep my distance. Thankfully, it was a divide and conquer sort of day where each of us took a kid to a separate birthday party. As a result, there wasn’t a lot of interaction between us. WW™ took Sprout to a party in the morning while I escorted the Bean to an afternoon affair.

In the evening, I went to my study to immerse myself in various forms of social media and tubes of You. There on my desk, directly in front of my laptop were two works of art from my daughter. The kids’ love of arts and crafts had been growing steadily and the walls of my office had become plastered with their various drawings and paintings. They would leave them for me on my desk or on the chair. But upon closer inspection, these pieces were different. They were absolutely the work of my little girl, but she had worked in a new medium. Glitter. Every square inch of the artwork was coated in a thick layer of sparkly art class glitter.

I abhor glitter with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

I used to have a cat that loved me and was incredibly territorial. During my single days, if a woman started spending too much time with me and getting comfortable in my apartment the cat would leave a present on her pillow. And by present, I mean poop. (The cat did this the most to the woman who would become WonderWife™. Later the two of them strongly bonded.) In this moment, I couldn't help but to think of that cat.  WonderWife™ was exactly like her.

I carefully removed the glitter bombs from the room as carefully as Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker, knowing that one false move would mean debris, which would mean sometime in the near future I would be walking around with glitter embarrassingly attached to my face. All the while, WonderWife™ smiled a devilish smile. The message couldn’t have been any clearer if I had woken up next to a horse head.

I was pissed at WonderWife’s™ retaliation but I also applauded her cleverness. This is why I love her.

The Reason Why There Is A Piece Of Glitter On My Face

WonderWife™ was out running an errand. The kids were finally down for their rest time. At long last quiet had descended upon the house.  I was mere moments into seizing the first opportunity I had all day to gorge myself at the trough of Facebook and Twitter when a scream rang out from the Bean’s room.

I burst through the Bean’s bedroom door like Whatshisface Baldwin in Backdraft, to find him sitting on his bed, wet and surrounded by shards of glass.  The Bean had thought that vigorously shaking a snow globe next to a wall was a good idea and naturally, it broke.  I inspected him for cuts and seeing that there were none proceeded to the calm-the-kid-down stage so I could inspect the damage.  My worst fears had been realized.  The bed had been compromised.  The shimmering contents that had once been held captive safely inside the glass orb had now been released into the world, like spirits from the Arc.  Glitter was everywhere--all over the Bean's bed, cascading down the wall and plastered against half of the Bean's face and hair. 

I cannot stand glitter. If glitter were a food, it would be cilantro. Yet my parental duties to clean up the glass and glitter fiasco outweighed my loathing of the stuff. So I did what needed to be done.  I rolled up my sleeves and got to work making the Bean's bed once again sleep-able, knowing that this was to be far from the last time that I would be seeing the evil shimmery bastards.

All That Glitters

On top of a stack of red envelopes I got yesterday was a valentine from my mom. Aw shucks, right? Except opening the envelope unleashed a cloud of glitter. It went everywhere. And of course, I was in bed at the time which means that there are now hundreds of little red specs preparing to strike while I sleep.

Glitter is one of the most diabolically evil things in this world. Glitter attacks with military precision in waves. The first attack is the most aggressive and does the most damage. This is the pile of glitter that falls off of a card or spills out of the envelope like anthrax. And while this is pretty bad, the second wave is worse. These are the sleeper agents, who can lay dormant and hide out for weeks until you’re out one night at a party an notice yourself sparkling with a few shimmering pieces of glitter that have adhered to your face.

It used to be that glitter was only relegated to arts and crafts or greeting cards. But in recent years, it has become a pervasive presence in society. You can find glitter in makeup and hair gel. It’s in glue and on clothing. Sometimes even in wedding invitations. It’s everywhere. Frankly, I blame rave culture whose high energy, pupil dilated dancing inhabitants have pushed the use of glitter further and further.

In the greeting card world, there is no bigger offender than Hallmark. It’s estimated that Hallmark uses glitter on one in every fifteen cards. This is not a high ratio, but enough to completely coat every single product in their racks with glitter. Picking out a card at Hallmark is like playing Russian Roulette. At some point, the card you pull up is going to be glittered. Even if you somehow manage to avoid the glitter cards, sleeper agents have adhered to every single other card and are hiding out in just about every corner of a Hallmark store. Just walking by one puts you at risk.

I know that the war against glitter is unwinnable, much like the war on drugs or the war on terror. The best I can hope for is to stay out of range of the enemy and live my life as peacefully and as glitter free as possible. Which these days, is an increasingly difficult thing to do.