a cautionary tale : how glitter drove her mad

There once was a woman who detested glitter. She thought it a vile thing, not because it was sparkly and that wasn’t her preference but because she felt like it was a plague - once it got on things it started to spread over every surface, it refused to uncling itself.

One day this woman decided it was time to take down a display of porcelain christmas houses that had been up for years. She loved the houses so but thought it would be nice to take down what was up and perhaps put up different houses in their place.

She set about busily finding each box. She pleasantly and carefully selected each house from the shelf and gingerly packaged it up. She hummed to herself while she did it, thinking “This isn’t so bad, why did I wait so long to do this?”

It wasn’t until the dog wandered by that she noticed something strange.

He sparkled.

Dogs shouldn’t sparkle.

Upon closer inspection she noticed that it looked like a disco ball had exploded near him and now his fur was full of little dust puffs of sparkle.

This made the woman frown. She didn’t like dust puffs of sparkle, especially not on her dog. Then she noticed her shirt.

She too was covered in sparkles.

The intense fury against glitter began to rear its ugly head as she attempted (full well knowing it wouldn’t work) to brush it off her clothing. She abandoned this attempt at cleaning when she realized it looked as if she was beating herself. The lovely man painting her foyer seemed genuinely concerned about her mental health, looking at her sideways, attempting to avoid eye contact.

Understanding that there was no turning back, she continued on with her task. House after house went into boxes and more and more layers of glitter continued to accumulate on her like an unholy plague.

She grumbled and cussed and wondered if the person who invented glitter was still living so that she could pay him/her a visit and give him/her a well deserved smack upside the head. (It was this fantasy that helped her complete her task, she grinned maniacally as she imagined the encounter and for a moment didn’t mind as even more of the stuff found its way onto her skin and clothing.)

Three hours of touching glitter infested objects drew to an end. The task still was not complete but the worst of it was done.

She settled into a chair and slowly twisted her arm to watch it reflect light. She thought of the graphic novel X-Men and the girl with the diamond hard skin. But this was different. This was freakin’ glitter, the bane of the craft world. It would not repel bullets. It would simply sit there and create a fury in her that even hell would fear.

But still...it was sort of mesmerizing. The way she had turned into a living rainbow. She bent down to pet the dog. Oh! She could get even more glitter off of him! She sat down on the floor and pulled the dog into her lap when suddenly the urge to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” came over her. It felt appropriate. She hummed and pet the dog and gazed up at the mountain of boxes that contained the glitter houses and noticed that they looked a little bit shrine like all piled up like that.

It wasn’t until her mother entered the room, commenting that there was glitter all over the rug and sofa and coffee table that the woman snapped out of her sparkle induced insanity. What had just happened? How had she gone from hating the sparklies to feeling some affection towards it?

Glitter has mind altering powers.

That was the only reasonable explanation.

The woman huffed as she stood up and surveyed herself and the room. Utter destruction. She glared at the glitter. She pondered the various ways she could make it meet its demise. She knew that vacuuming didn’t always work. Then she thought of it. Eureka!

She raced upstairs and returned to the battle armed with a sticky roller used for removing lint from clothing. Surely the glitter could not escape from sticky - sticky must be the secret weapon!

She crouched down and swiped the roll across the carpet. She gleefully noted that it quickly became encased with the enemy. She imagined each little glitter flake screaming in terror as she lowered the roller back down to the carpet.

Two hours later, the roller - and she - was exhausted. She and the roller had battled the whole room and she sat down to her laptop to enjoy a break by surfing the internet.

And that’s when she saw it.

Glitter on the keyboard.

It was reported on the evening news that swearing and screaming could be heard all throughout southeastern michigan. The source was never identified but speculation swarmed around the woman who had a breakdown from some sort of craft project (they never got it straight that it was porcelain houses, not crafts).

Proceed with caution when using the sparkly stuff. That way lies madness.