Woke up to the news that a friend's wife had died suddenly. Wept in car on the way to work. Arrived at work to find co-workers staring into my plastic traps at two dead mice, which had gotten stuck in them over the weekend. A wave of 55 summer school pre-teens hit the library, wanting to sign up for summer reading program and hear stories - I yanked Half Minute Horrors off the shelf and read to them about rotting flesh and monsters. When the kids asked for scarier stuff, I told them my skinwalker story* and they screamed in a very gratifying manner. Got back into my office, flushed and happy and wondering if I'd get a parental complaint letter, then remembered my friend's words about her kids screaming over the phone after finding her wife's body a few hours earlier.
"How can all these things be happening alongside each other?!" I lamented.
"You are sandboxing," Mike said.
"Is that a therapy term?"
"That's a computer term. Like how apps can't cross over into each other unless you give them permission."
"Wouldn't that work the same way with regular boxes?"
"Sandboxes are more fun."
"Not if there's a cat in them. Cats are more fun in regular boxes."
"I guess they could call it cat boxing."
"But cats would sit in multiple boxes at the same time. They would collapse the system. SHIT I'M STILL DOING IT. I'M DOING IT RIGHT NOW."
"That's what I was saying."
My biggest box contains sadness today.
* have I told this one here? When I was 8, we had a knife-wielding stalker staring into our windows at night and trying to kill my mom. I'll tell it sometime.
You'll tell it "sometime"? TELL IT NOW.
ReplyDeletePlease. :)