Bizarre sentiment~

I stuck with Pete's plan today and tackled the "linen closet."

My "linen" closet holds cotton sheets and terrycloth towels, and assorted other things. Three bagfuls are now in the trash. I saved-- but neatly-- equally as much stuff. I will save it for six months to see if I actually use it. I already know what the answer will be, but psychologically three bags were enough for today's trash.

It was an unpleasant job, a hot sweaty job. The choices, the decisions, the dust. . .. I was proud I chose to do it instead of writing the newspaper story due today; if I didn't procrastinate on writing, I'd never get anything done around the house.

It took only a couple of hours and the closet looks as good as my "lonj - er - ay" drawer.

I decided I'd look into my "items with sentimental value." Pete says if they're important enough to keep, find a place to "highlight their importance." Makes sense; I concur: toss it or prove its worth by finding a place for it.

I was doing well until I came across a small cap in a box that held old costume jewelry.

It was the cap my newborn son wore on his head when I brought him home from the hospital. Well, he didn't actually wear it on his cranium, but his other head.

It was the tiny plastic cap that the doctor put on the head of my son's penis after circumcising him. Think tiny, like the tip of a woman's baby finger. It's twenty-eight years old. He is too.

Weird? What can I say? He was my firstborn son. Tell me no other mother ever saved a plastic cap from her son's penis! Or maybe not that, exactly, but something else equally odd. Or . . . is it just me?

Here's, the dilemma: save it or not?

I saved it this long, this little symbol of the birth of a son. I can't just toss it. But how can I highlight it? Put it on a chain and wear it around my neck?

"Oh, I love your pendant," they'll say. "So original. Where did you get it?"

Frame it in a shadow box, a tiny one, and focus spot lighting on it? Pass out magnifying glasses so people can view it?

Give it to my son's fiancée on their wedding night? "They grow up so soon," I'll say.

Blackmail him with it? "I'll post a picture on the Internet if . . ."

Pete be damned. This stays in the box in my drawer. Sometimes, bizarre or not, sentiment rules.