Appreciation

Thursday afternoon my daughter crafted me a bracelet. She worked carefully as she strung the multi-colored plastic beads onto the pink elastic string and presented it to me with more than a cursory pride.  And I took it from her and I beamed and told her I loved it and thought, "what a piece of shit." It is, too.  A total piece of shit. Really just not good. Crappy.  A colorful piece of shit on my wrist. And I do love it. That's the thing. I love this stupid plastic piece of shit. Not because she's especially good at making shitty jewelery either. Have a look at this thing.

Total piece of shit. It's all loose and the beads are separating. I will say it was a little tighter before I showered with it on. Which I did because I am a dutiful and thoughtful father who wears his piece of shit even when he showers, only to find out that the fucking piece of shit can't even stand up to a five minute shower.  We went out to dinner with friends that night and I showed it off as proud as can be. "Look at this piece of shit bracelet my daughter made for me," I boasted, "isn't it beautiful?" 

And everyone made "oh mmm yes, wow that is really a beautiful piece of shit" noises at us. Not just to protect her feelings but also to protect mine, because they could tell that I really love this stupid piece of shit. 

I'm wearing it right now. It keeps sliding half way down my forearm. Because it sucks. 

I asked for this god awful thing too. Really. Pleaded for it, for fuck's sake. My daughter announced to her mommy that she was going to make her a necklace and I interrupted, "Hey, what about me? Don't I get some jewelery? Don't I get a dumb piece of shitty plastic jewelery from the six dollar "Jewelery making kit (as if)" we bought you for Christmas at Toys R' Us? I too want to march around for eternity with an elastic full of petroleum based choking hazards strapped to my body."

She said yes. So then she was making herself a bracelet and a necklace, her mother a necklace, and a bracelet for me. I'd effectively created a tiny sweatshop right at my own dining room table because I couldn't stand to be left out of the Piece of Shit Jewelery Sweepstakes. Couldn't bare it. 

Also, she ended up running low on beads/forgetting to make her mother's necklace--because she's a six year old which automatically makes her a horrible artisan at almost anything she chooses--so now I am the lone adult in the house blessed with a piece of shit jewelry to wear ad infinitum, forever and ever, I'll definitely have to be cremated when I die so 10, 000 years from now the archaeologists don't dig it up at my grave sight and decide on the spot that our entire civilization had horrible taste in accessories. 

One last thing I should probably tell you about this synthetic caterpillar of despair: In the end, she didn't even make it. I made it myself with her resentful oral directions. 

She got the bracelet all done, and brought it to me to wear. But . . . only one end of the string was knotted. So when she handed it to me and I attempted to tie it together, the beads slithered off the string and into either my lap or the dark, crumby recesses of my recliner. So I had to find all the beads and painstakingly replace each one with my big, fumbly, middle-aged fingers while she, distracted by the tv, directed me in an annoyed monotone as to which bead to place when, one-by-one.  "Green. Yellow, Pink, Red, Pink, RednoOrange. (Exhale) Orange."

And you still could not tell me that this is not a beautiful bracelet my daughter made for me with her own two hands. A beautiful, sweaty, ugly, slick, uncomfortable, piece of shit plastic mistake of a bracelet that I will wear everyday for the rest of my life or until she makes me a new one, whichever comes blessedly first. 

HM