Ducks Gone Wild!

Have you heard that Kristen, mistress of the internet, is on trial for accidentally liberating a duckie from Baby Gap? Read her heartbreaking story here, here and here. There are already plenty of smart responses out there, but I can't help but contributing. Get your torches ready.

A few months ago, I went to Target with Sam and SOB. Even with two parents present, we didn't notice that Sam knocked a bottle of vitamins into the diaper bag until we got home. They were the Target brand variation of Centrum Silver, and from past experiences purchasing similar items I could deduce that they cost about $6. I knew I would eventually get back to Target and that I could return them. But I also knew that I didn't want to look at this bottle of vitamins every day. If I had any hope of remembering to take them with me the next time I went shopping, I'd have to leave them out in the open. Just by chance my grandparents were coming to visit that weekend, and guess what I ended up doing with the vitamins? Yup, I gave them to my Grammy. I told her the whole story, and she was 100% fine with accepting free vitamins that had been accidentally stolen by her granddaughter and great-grandson. In fact, I think she rather enjoyed this fact, given that she told every member of our family this story once she got back home. She always did love a bargain, and free is as good a bargain as you can get!

Did I feel guilty about the pilfered pills? Not for one single minute. There are ten thousand other things of greater importance to worry about at any given moment. Is the milk in the refrigerator bad? Is my son developing at a normal rate? Why does my cat puke on the carpet every 13 days?

The point is, the harder we work ourselves up over inconsequential things, the less energy we have to tend to the things that really matter. I want to be able to relax and enjoy reading my baby boy a story at bed time, not be stressed about how I factor into a huge corporation's calculated loss. I'm not even attempting to say that there is a right or wrong about this. Just that there are difference circumstances and people will react to the in different ways. Why do we feel the need to attack one another over things of such little significance?