Just so

I like certain things in my life to be just so.  (This, of course, not applying to my house or my car which are both in perpetual flux between pristine and disaster.)  I compulsively wipe the fingerprints from the screen of my phone.  The scuffs on the toes of my boots that I love to wear and cannot afford to replace drive me crazy.  I wipe the kitchen faucet to a shine almost every time I walk past it.

So the deep scratches on the back of the door-lock-remote-control-thing for my car (is there a technical term for it?) were starting to bother me.  Like, a lot.  As I walked rubbing it, the ridges bristling against my fingers the same way they bristled against my nerves, I decided that I would simply ask my husband to swap it with his.  He hardly ever drives my car, and (if his habit of leaving dishes full of standing water in the sink is any indication) he is far less annoyed by small things than I am.

But then I knew I would have to explain how it happened.  I don't like explaining situations wherein I ruin, mar, or otherwise cause damage to something that potentially costs money to replace.

You see, my blue-eyed four-year-old and I were skipping through the parking lot at the grocery store and my keys skipped their way out of my pocket and landed under my foot on the asphalt where the back of the door-lock-remote-control-thing for my car was gouged.

It happened while I was skipping with one of my almost-big boys.

...

I don't think I'll be asking my husband to swap with me after all.