Tuesday, August 23, 2011

99 Bottles of Water on the Wall

I know I’m going off the deep end here. I KNOW. And yet, I can’t stop.

Last year, as Sammy started kindergarten, the teacher told us parents to send water bottles labeled with our kids’ names for taking out to recess, sipping with snacks, etc. A bell dinged in my brain, and as soon as I got home, I started rummaging through the cabinets until I found it. Years earlier, someone had given Sammy a brightly-colored water jug emblazoned with his name, and I’d stashed it away because my 2 year old didn’t exactly have the fine motor skills needed to operate it. But now, it would be perfect.

And so, he used it all year, at school and all over the place. And of course, me being the bottle-obsessed weirdo had to find one for Sabrina because, of course, they had to match. This particular line of moniker displaying thermoses didn’t make a Sabrina, much like most other name-labeled items out there, but they did make a generic design or 2, so I picked a butterfly bottle up for her (pink, natch) at Babies R Us. I’d seen then there every time I stopped by, which was many, many times.

Then last week, I noticed the spring lid wasn’t latching properly, and upon closer inspection found that it was just a little bit broken. It still worked, sort of, but I knew that after 2 days of school it would be completely broken and it would probably come home with pieces missing and that would be the end of it. And that just would not do. So off I went to the store. And another one. And another one. After years of seeing these things everywhere, they were nowhere to be found. So I turned to the internet. I expected to find the bottles all over the place, but no. I ended up on eBay.

Yet, for some reason, Sam was in short supply. Meaning, I could order it from England if I really wanted it. But, y’all. The international shipping nearly gave me a heart attack. So I got creative. I bought a bottle with another name on it. I hate to be wasteful, but I didn’t really need the bottom part, so I figured I could ditch the what’s his name portion and use the top. And it arrived over the weekend, just in time for school. Big pat on the back for me.

Until Sammy came home today and told me the bottle didn’t work. And sure enough, it didn’t. It’s missing an internal spring. And I can’t get to the internal part so I can fix it. GRRRRR!!!

This is irritating me much more than it should. I’ll get with the seller and hopefully he’ll make it right with me, or I’ll order another from somewhere else and it’ll be fine, but man, this is bugging me. Yes, I am a sad, sad person. Pick your reason: because I’m bugged about a water bottle, of which there are millions out there to choose from, or because I’ve just written 500 words about it.

I’ll be over here, grumbling under my breath. But please do me and my insanity a favor, and if you happen to see a cute water bottle bearing the name of Sam (or Samuel or Sammy, I’m not picky), tell me where I can get my hands on it. I can use all the spares I can get.

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