Not my Cup of Tea

I’m an idiot. Let’s just put that out there right now. I’m overtired and didn’t know what I was doing, wandering in to the loose leaf tea store. But the sample was so yummy…

 

When we were at the mall last week, Jay and I tried the samples. They were so good, but we didn’t go in. I resolved to go back another time and buy some tea. Jay wondered aloud how such a place could stay in business in the mall. Well, I’ll tell you how.

 

How silly of me to think I could walk into such a store and just “buy some tea”.

 

I was at the mall, just me and Gus making a brief trip to pick something up and I sampled the tea again. I told the pretentious hipster sales boy I wanted some of that one, right there, so he accompanied me into the store.

 

I should have known I was in trouble when his first move was to try to sell me a $100 cast iron tea pot “for the health benefits”. Ahem, no. I just want some of that tea, right there.

 

So he tried to sell me a porcelain one for only $50. My tea ball at home was just so lacking you know, it wouldn’t let my tea brew properly. I began to waiver. But no, that is way too much still. I just want my tea. Yes, I am pretty sure I just want the tea.

 

His next step was to show me the one cup tea maker thing – only $20. “And see? It lets the leaves swish around and expand, not like a tea ball.” He practically had to choke out the words “tea ball” they disgusted him so much. Ok, fine. Give me that one.

 

“Well, would you like this one here? It can make more than one cup and is only $10 more?” he asked. Now I was really starting to get annoyed. No, I wouldn’t like that one.

 

On to the tea counter. Now we have to talk about canisters. He tells me he can put my teas (because the tea I sampled was two teas – of course it was.) into large canisters ($7 each) or small ones ($6 each) and he’s scooping tea into them as fast as he can and I am seeing my money just oozing out of my wallet, and I’m starting to sweat.

 

He tries to sell me a full pound (to get a 10% discount!!) and I breathlessly tell him, no, just stop scooping and give me my tea!

 

But he’s not done yet! Oh no! Then he tries to sell me German Sugar Rocks. And that was one step too far. I tell him no and am about to scrap the whole thing, but what’s this? He’s already rung me up. How did that happen? As I go to sign the credit machine, I growl out, “Don’t you sell tea in bags or anything? Do I have to buy a canister each time?” And he tells me that they have bags, but they are not air tight. But it’s too late and I am seeing red so I don’t even remember that I have these special airtight bags at home called ZIPLOCKS.

 

So I take my fancy tea and as I retreat out of the store in total defeat, he calls out, “That should make you 150 to 200 cups of tea!”

 

And I wonder what kind of responsible sales person sells someone who wants to try something 150-200 cups worth.

 

One who just got a big commission evidently. This was definitely a case of “Shopper Beware”. Teavana, you will never see another dime of my money.

 

 

No Time to Write

There is no time to write these days.  I have revised my goals multiple times since the year started and have not made any of them.  Today, I am sitting at the computer with the desk piled so high with papers I can barely see the bottom of the screen.  So scratch the idea of waiting until I get the desk clean.  But last night we sat down to dinner and the clamor around me was all I could hear.  The baby was hollering in the high chair and banging his toy, the toddler was whining about having a drink or not having a drink- I can’t really remember, several things forgotten in the setting of the table were being remarked on by others.  It was a relatively happy chaos, but in my frazzled state all I could hear was the chaos part.  And I realized that I had not had a moment of uninterrupted thinking since the night before, when I had forced myself to stay awake (nursing the baby of course, so even then I wasn’t truly alone) just to have a few moments to hear myself think.  This lifestyle can, at times, be pure torture for an introvert.

 

I found myself getting crabbier as the day progressed, never being able to finish a thought without another little person coming to talk to me again.  In conversations that mostly go like this:

Molly: Mommy!
Me: What?
Molly: Mommy!
Me: What?
Molly: Mommy!
Me: What?
Molly: Mommy!
Me: WHAT?!?
Molly: I love you.
Me: I love you too.

I have these little exchanges with Molly about 10 times a day.  It is cute, but it can get a little grating.

So I figured that maybe, for my own sanity, I should write a little <insert phone call from one child, extricating a child from the tangle of scotch tape, and breaking up a fight between two others here>
Oh, and Molly please take your dolly away from the piano, she doesn’t know how to play.

What was I saying… something about finishing a thought…
Oh well, it’s gone now and the vacuum is making a very strange sound in the other room, so I guess my moment of sanity is over.

<An hour or so goes by.>

I’m returning to try to finish this post.  <How did she find another roll of scotch tape?>  Ahem.  My realization was that <NO, YOU CAN’T HAVE CAKE!> I need to carve out some time to finish my thoughts before I go completely catatonic.  I am at one of those stages when children begin to decide that all adults are idiots.  The first stage happens when they are learning to talk and tell you they want “Um gick!” forty three times before you figure out that what they really want is ” Some milk!”  Then next stage is where I am right now.  My brain is trying so hard to finish a thought that my kids will come and say something to me 4 or 5 times before I can register what they are saying to me.  And I can see the idea forming in their heads: Idiots are in charge!  Tired idiots! We can get away with ANYTHING.

 

This is no new revelation, that I need time for myself.  It just keeps getting harder, that’s all.  But it also becomes more vitally important as more of these people are relying on me to make important decisions and do things like use electricity to cook.

 

What I need now is for the baby to sleep.  And by that I mean to sleep while not touching my body, which he hasn’t been so hot on so far.  No swaddling, pacifiers, swings (we bought two out of desperation), or crying (his or mine) seem to do the trick.  So we are just going to have to be down to emergency measures: letting other things go so I can grasp a moment here or there to think. Typing things out, maybe that will help my disjointed thinking to become thoughts and thoughts to become ideas.  And this desperation will release its grasp on me just a little so that I am a little better to focus on these little people.  I love them so very much.  I just need them to LEAVE ME ALONE FOR ONE MOMENT PLEASE!!!