Sometimes I Do Things Peter Hates.

There are things I do that Peter hates. Maybe hate is a strong word. But maybe it isn’t.

Like, I have this compulsion to collect hair ties that I find in the parking lot or on the sidewalk. And you may be surprised how often one comes across a hair tie while she’s walking about her life. Let’s just say, it’s often.

And they call to me, like a beacon in the night. Like a siren in the storm. I can walk past all the loose change that’s fallen out of wayward pockets, but hair ties will catch my eye every time.

I think it’s perhaps because I have a compulsion to avoid this.

Wind makes me angry. Smashing car doors into my shins and making my hair stick to my lip gloss.  And I can’t bear to be without an option to tame the mane. So, some might say, I hoard.

Peter and I were walking to the car after a breakfast date at our favorite place (the Snooze in Lone Tree, if you’re curious), when I spotted a blessing on the sidewalk.

I gasped. “Peter! Look! It’s a gift from the Lord!”

“No, it is a temptation, and thankfully the Lord has promised you a way out,” he said, putting his arm around me and guiding me around and past the mistress in my path.

He said, “I have so many questions about this. Most importantly, who are these women who are forever losing their hair ties? What happens? They walk outside and lose control? I don’t understand this.”

And then, “Babe, I am going to buy you a whole collection of hair ties. And I’ll even scatter them around our driveway to make you love them more. God knows I don’t understand.”

I’m compulsive. But the hair tie situation is less of a problem than the time I picked up a lip gloss in the Target parking lot.

In my defense, it was the perfect color.