Giggle... Just a Little...

by Cylithria Dubois

When I saw the theme for this issue of Mosaic Minds I was wide-eyed with ideas. The words "just a little..." conjure up copious endings for that phrase. It was as if the editors had handed me an entire cup full of pens and all the paper I could wish for.

Soon I found the wheels of creativity twirling endlessly in my mind. I'd drool with delight as each new idea took form in my mind. I'd stop what I was doing, run to a pad of paper and jot down yet one more train of thought. For a week I was giddy.

That giddiness quickly dissipated when the week that I had to move arrived. Gone were the thoughts of creative endeavors. Gone were the races to note pads. Gone was the giddy excitement. It was replaced with the rigors of a self-move.

Moving. That should be a four-letter word. I used to love to move. I adored the adventure. I reveled in the new discoveries that come with a move. I was thrilled at the prospect of decorating a new place, and then, I did a self-move.

What was I thinking? It didn't seem that bad an idea at the time, moving myself into an apartment. It was a small apartment--how bad could it be, right? Oy vey, it was bad. I never thought about the fact that I'd have to move everything out of the huge home I lived in. I never thought of the hours of packing boxes myself or moving heavy furniture into appropriate sections. I never thought that I'd have to pick and choose what to take, what to donate and what to sell.

By hour two of day one of my move, I was overwhelmed. Yep, that's right; it took all of two hours for the excitement, new discoveries and adventure to fade in a puff of smoke. Moving wasn't any fun anymore. In fact, it was miserable.

For a week, in unending heat, I toiled away. Who would have known that plastic kitchen-storage containers would need five boxes to be packed in? Who would have guessed that a TV weighed so much? And what idiot thought that all the bric-a-bracs around my home were cute? They weren't cute; they were pains in the *ahem*. I boxed, I carried, I trashed, I donated, I sold all my creativity right into my move.

I did make it out of that house and managed to get everything I wanted into that tiny apartment! How, I do not know. When I walked into my apartment at midnight on the final day of my move, I was defeated, demoralized and weary to the bone. And then I turned on the light.

Holy wow, now I had to unpack, move and reassemble everything. I had to put all my stuff in its proper place and I had only a tiny path to move through. As tears came to my eyes I wondered what I had done to myself. I walked along my tiny path into the kitchen; maybe it'd be better in there. Nope--it had only a path to the refrigerator. My tears flowed faster. I turned and walked into my bedroom. Surely it had at least some open space, right? Wrong. Even my mattresses were up on one side, creating yet another tiny path to the closet.

I was at my lowest. Now tears streamed down my face as I turned and looked at my tiny apartment paths. I walked out of my room and into the bathroom, where there was at least one spot available to sit down on; the toilet.

Resigned to having myself a good cry, I flicked on the light as I sat down. Wow, I was finally sitting, but wait--why is the towel bar crooked? Oh great, that is going to drive me nuts, I thought. Wait--why is the floor board crooked? Oh, have mercy, this is getting worse by the minute. Why am I leaning against the roll of toilet paper? I was almost ready to run from my apartment and fling myself off the nearest cliff when I realized what was going on.

My towel bar wasn't crooked, nor was my floorboard. My toilet seat was! I stood up and looked at it. I opened the lid and closed it and then I sat back down. Sure enough a broken lid button was the culprit.

That's when I felt it rising up within me. At first I tried to stifle it; after all I had tears still streaming down my face. But I couldn't bury it. My lopsided outlook on life would not allow me to. So what did I do as I sat on my lopsided toilet in my tiny apartment with only paths for room to move? I broke into a giggle ... just a little one.